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fables 



THE FIRE-SIDE. 



DEDICATED TO 

THE MARCHIONESS OF DOUGLAS AND CLYDESDALE, 



BY JOHN^ETTICE, D.D, 



.4 NEW APPLICATION OP THESE FABLES TO THREE IMPORTANT OBJECTS OF 
EDUCATION IS EXPLAINED IN THE INTRODUCTION. 



_ 



LONDON : 

PRINTED FOR AND SOLD BY JAMES BLACK, 

YORK-STREET, COVENT-GARDEN, 

SOLD ALSO BY BLACK, PARRY, AND CO. LEAD ENH ALL-STREET i 

GALE AND CURTIS, PATERNOSTER-ROW ; AND 

CLARKE, NEW BOND-STRFET 



1812. 






Hughes, Printer, Maiden-Lane, Covent-Qarden. 



DEDICATION. 

TO THE 

MARCHIONESS of DOUGLAS and CLYDESDALE. 



Madam, 

At a moment, when the universal education of the 
people of England makes the general topic of our 
country, may not a little work, though chiefly cal- 
culated to improve that of the middle and higher 
classes in its moral department, claim some share 
of public attention ? That, which is here presented 
to your Ladyship, has been judged by the Author's 
literary friends, as it is intended by himself, an 
improvement on the usual methods of conveying 
moral impressions to the minds of youth. What 
the supposed improvement is will be found suffi- 
ciently explained in the Introduction to the work. 

To give works of any kind, at their first publica- 
tion, the best chance of attracting the attention of 
the world, is to place them within the notice, and, 
as far as they may deserve it, under the patronage 
of the Great. And whose notice, Madam, or patron- 
age, for a work concerning the most important. 



DEDICATION. 



the moral branch of education, can with more pro- 
priety be sought than that of a lady of illustrious 
rank, who having, in the years of her pupilage, 
proved herself equally formed by superior under- 
standing, and disposed by native goodness of heart, 
to do justice to every object of instruction proposed 
for her attainment, shines pre-eminently accom- 
plished in the best and brightest endowments, which 
education can confer ? That a character so distin- 
guished, on whose merits the Author speaks but the 
known sentiments and language of the world, may 
long continue to give its truest splendour to exalted 
rank ; to adorn and delight the most polished 
circles of her own sphere ; and, in a licentious age, 
to shed on society at large the benign influence of 
moral example, from a heighth of situation which 
incalculably augments its weight and impression, 
is among the sincerest wishes of. 

Madam, 

Your Ladyship's 

Most obedient humble servant, 

JOHN LETTICE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



SECTION X. 

Nature of this Work. 

The author of this little work once met with 
a formal personage, established in a creditable 
vocation, so puritanically solemn in his notions 
of the external deportment it required of him, 
as to have confessed with shame, that he, one 
day, caught himself in the unseemly act of 
running, His rigid steadiness of muscles an- 
nouncing an invincible power of face, it had 
been needless to ask him, whether he ever caught 
himself unfortunately smiling. Should any one r 
of this cast of character, compare the title of 
the present publication with the profession and 
academical rank of its author, he might take 
alarm, and discern something as unbecoming in 
this title, as the above personage had discovered 
in the indecorous briskness of his own movements. 
But should persons of unaffected seriousness, 
and unquestioned soundness of mind, express 
dissatisfaction, that the book should not Jhave 



11 IN^KODUCTION. 



borne a graver, or more clerical front, the writer 
can hardly doubt they will be satisfied on being 
assured its main object is to instill a series 
of Ethical Lessons on a plan truly practical. 
Though some of these lessons will perhaps be 
thought to fall more properly under a defi- 
nition of " Social Manners;" and rather to 
answer Aristotle's idea of the u Lesser Morals ;" 
yet such at least emanate from principles strictly 
moral, as these principles do from the second 
table of the decalogue, and the earlier inspira- 
tions of the deity; all morality deriving its 
origin and authority from no other source than 
the will of God ; which alone constitutes what 
philosophers have been pleased to call the eternal 
rules of right and wrong. 

Can a performance of this nature, respecting 
any of its views and intentions, be otherwise 
than perversely conceived incongruous with the 
clerical character? Nay, the apologues, the 
primary vehicle of instruction in these pages, 
however remote from severity in point of stile, 
and wanting all, they must, of the sacred spirit, 
partake at least the parabolic form, in which 
our divine Law-giver deli weired many of his 
precepts . 



INTRODUCTION, 111 



Though no further demand for explanation on 
this topic can well be expected, it may not be 
amiss, lest the livelier tone of some of these 
fables should not precisely harmonize with the 
ideas of the more respected class of Critics 
above adverted to, on the gravity of clerical 
occupation, to intimate, that none of them were 
written at seasons, when professional writing or 
research could have been pursued to any pur- 
pose. Several of them employed the writer's 
pencil during retired walks in his garden ; and 
the rest were chiefly the amusement of early 
sleepless hours by lamp-light before a convenient 
time of rising. He does not recollect, that any 
part of the time spent in writing the fables was 
ever stolen from vocation or duty : the moral 
and intellectual exercises grounded upon them 
receive countenance from both, and might, not 
unworthily, have been dictated by either. — 
When his views and intentions in the whole of 
this publication are made known, the employ- 
ment it has required, will, he trusts, be judged 
no way unbecoming a quiet Recluse in his old 
age, anxious to keep the lamp of life compe- 
tently trimmed, while yet suffered to burn, and to 
be found at the last irreproachably occupied by it. 



IV INTRODUCTION. 



SECTION II. 

Composition of the Fables. 

Before he explains the serious application of 
these apologues, and the different purposes to 
which he wishes them to be made subservient, 
he begs leave to premise three words on their 
technical composition. They are professedly 
written on the ground-work of Phaedrus and 
La Fontaine, i. e. on the subjects of their 
fables ; subjects conveyed to them through the 
dry and simple apologues of old iEsop, and 
to him perhaps from Lokeman and Pilpay. 

They are, however, presented in the follow- 
ing pages, sometimes as translations, sometimes 
as imitations ; oftener perhaps as paraphrases, 
with many new thoughts freely added, and those 
in the present writer's own manner ; not from a 
fruitless ambition of improving upon such models; 
but from the desire of giving them some little 
air of novelty. The volumes of these delight- 
ful fabulists have, sometimes, been kept open, 
after reading the fable he had chosen ; some- 
times entirely shut again, 'till he had written the 



INTRODUCTION. 



whole. But they were always, one or other, at 
hand, for reperusal, or recollection. 

SECTION III. 

Their Title , Object, and Uses, 

But to proceed to the purposes for which this 
publication is intended to serve, and which it 
may probably do the more successfully, on ac- 
count of the familiar stile and manner in which 
the fables are written ; the author has entitled 
his little work, " Fables for the Fire-side," under 
an idea of recommending them more particularly 
to parents in middle and higher life, who edu- 
cate their children at home ; and to others who, 
at times of school vacation, have the younger 
members of their families, of either sex, closely 
gathered about them, which more generally 
happens in the colder season of the year. In 
this pleasing circle, why might not the reading 
of a fable or two each evening, be proposed as 
an exercise of amusement, that might advan- 
tageously and creditably take place of charades 
and enigmas, among young persons from sixteen 
to any later period, for the investigation of their 
moral scope and intention ? 



VI INTRODUCTION. 



Although the writer, in his title page, has 
intimated this use of his fables in schools and 
academies, as well as in private families, he 
expects it will be first most successfully brought 
to experiment in the latter, and in those smaller 
seminaries scarcely less private ; where, in fact, 
the pupils, male or female, make part of the 
family, and are entertained on the same footing 
as its younger relatives. But it is hoped, that 
masters and governesses of the largest semi- 
naries may be among the first, to try the expe- 
riment in their private families at their hours of 
relaxation out of school. Success there may 
probably soon induce them to adopt this plan 
of moral and intellectual exercise in the higher 
classes of the school or academy. 

To proceed now to the manner of putting the 
plan into execution, the writer has placed what 
he would call his moral cases or praxis at the end 
of each fable in a series of questions and answers 
upon each ; partly as suggestions to instructors or 
examiners ; whether parents, friends, or precep- 
tors. A fable having been distinctly and properly 
read by one of the pupils or young persons of a 
family, the first question is to be deliberately 
proposed, and, after a due interval allowed for 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

consideration, let an answer be required from 
each in order, before the examiner proceeds to 
a second interrogatory. It must be understood, 
that to make this exercise as extensively useful 
as may be, the cases or questions are far from 
being solely directed to the main intention of 
the fable ; but are meant also to turn the pupil's 
investigations and reasonings on the circum- 
stances, incidents, and characters ; and on every 
point of view, in which an apologue can be 
placed, to make it subservient to instruction. 
A mere affirmation or negation will, whatever 
their object, suffice to answer some of the ques- 
tions. But the greater part, perhaps, will 
require, or at least admit, reasons to be given 
for the affirmation or negation ; and an improv- 
ing exercise is proposed, and will be practised, 
as far as our young thinkers are urged to dis- 
cover and produce them. But a little difficulty 
has been foreseen in the examiners taking the 
answers to any question proposed, and that is, 
by what means to prevent later answerers than 
the first, where several young persons are con- 
sidering the same question, from availing them- 
selves partly, or even wholly, of preceding 
solutions ; for it is almost needless to observe 
the various aspects under which different minds 



VI11 INTRODUCTION. 

may regard the same question. Different, and 
sometimes even contrary answers, may possibly 
and even plausibly be returned to the same case 
where principles directly moral are not impli- 
cated. Now it is supposed, that it may not, 
on many occasions, be thought too formal a 
thing in these parties, were we to recommend, 
during the interval allowed for consideration, 
that each young person, keeping a pencil in his 
hand, should put down a few leading words 
expressing the substance of the answer he in- 
tended to give. This being read, or shewn to 
the querist, when required, would sufficiently 
distinguish and appropriate each solution, how- 
ever it might resemble any other, previously 
given. As often as this amusement is resorted to, 
the examiner, when the case proposed lias been 
duly considered, cannot do better, than to demand 
answers first from the younger members of the 
party, or those thought less likely to give such 
as are proper, or most plausible. Their answers 
will lastly be compared with those of the author. 

SECTION IV, 

Fables improperly taught to young Children. 

As soon, however, as the attention of those, to 
whom they are addressed, begins io flag under 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

the praxis just explained, calling, as it does, for 
some vigour of thought, if not of ingenuity, it 
may be discontinued ; and our young moralists 
may, in the solution of riddles and charades, 
unbend their minds with their more juvenile 
brothers and sisters ; who, if below the age, 
at which these fables are recommended, are 
certainly too young to give any just moral 
interpretation of these, or of any other apo- 
logues ; and, in attempting it, are only wasting 
their time on what to them is barren of all use. 
A fable, in which birds and beasts are holding 
human discourse, to them literally becomes no 
better than a story about a Cock and a Bull. 
The author knows, that a very respectable 
Baronet, who has lately appeared in the character 
of a fabulist for young children, has naturally 
enough been induced, to treat with censure 
Rousseau's Analysis of Fontaine's Fable of the 
" Fox and the Crow." But, notwithstanding 
the impracticable paradoxes and eccentricity of 
Rousseau's system of education, he has surely 
discovered much discernment of the faculties 
of the infant mind ; and, notwithstanding a mis- 
take or two in this Analysis, has given no insuffi- 
cient proof of the general incapacity of young 
children to understand the moral application of 



X INTRODUCTION. 



fables. It will be said, that moral applications 
are attached to many of our books of fables by 
their editors ; where the fabulist's meaning has 
not been clear ; or, that in default of this 
assistance, teachers have explained the moral, 
viva voce, to the pupil. Instances, it is true, of 
these helps are not unfrequently supplied ; but 
it is as tru6, that children are as often left 
without them. But, in the former case, the 
applications are scarcely ever voluntarily read 
by children ; in the latter, the living instruction 
is too rarely given them more than once, and is 
soon forgotten ; if, indeed, in either case, it be 
ever well understood . Though many young chil- 
dren will spontaneously peruse their fables again 
and again, it is only because they are amused 
with the story ; as they have often been heard 
to confess at a riper age. But whenever, in the 
perusal of fables, not to mention their repetitions 
of them as a task, they are left solely to their 
own reflection to interpret their meaning, or 
construe their tendency, immature judgments, 
like theirs, will be so often misled, unless where 
general principles of morals have been previ- 
ously and deeply inculcated by the most direct 
and simple precepts, that their early introduction 
to fables may be attended with ill consequence 



INTRODUCTION. XI 



or danger. Suppose a child, either naturally 
more inclined to evil than to good (as some 
have believed all children to be), or already 
corrupted, in many of his ideas of right and 
wrong, by idle and vicious school-fellows, by 
ignorant servants, or ill examples of parents, 
or of other members of a family at home, will 
he not be likely to make some bad character in 
the fable rather the object of his imitation, than 
the good ones? It cannot be denied, that he 
has before him, in some characters of every 
fable, a lesson of evil. He is taught by them 
the way and manner, in which bad things may 
be done ; how the worst crimes may be com- 
mitted ; and that too with success ; as we find 
by the defective management of some of our 
fabulists, that vice is almost as often rewarded, 
or at least encouraged, as virtue. To mention 
but one instance, where the author would under- 
take to produce many, the fable of the " Cat, 
the Eagle, and the Sow," shews the malicious 
and selfish conduct of the Cat completely gain- 
ing her point, and exhibits vice triumphant. 
That this happens continually in the world is 
true ; but it should be concealed from children, 
'till clear moral ideas have been well imbibed 
and confirmed. It is time enough for youth to 



XU INTRODUCTION. 

be made acquainted with the frequent success 
and prosperity of wicked men in the world, a 
little before their entrance into it, and after they 
have been seriously taught, what the supreme 
governor of the universe expects, with his 
own assistance, from the free agency of man 
in this state of probation under the great doc- 
trine of a future retribution, through which all 
that confusion, occasioned in our present exist- 
ence by triumphant vice, will be rectified ; the 
moral attributes of God vindicated ; and wisdom 
justified of her children. When right princi- 
ples have been, by direct instruction, sufficiently 
fixed to have an habitual influence on the 
sentiments and conduct of children ; they may, 
between sixteen and twenty years of age, and 
sometimes earlier, according to their different 
parts and progress, be capable of reading fables 
with discrimination and judgment ; their perusal 
of them may be attended with as much instruc- 
tion as entertainment: and prove a mode of 
preparation for their entrance on the stage of 
the world, equally safe, useful, and agreeable. 

Fables, both in ancient and modern times, 
have, probably with more tenderness and deli- 
cacy tkan good moral effect, been employed as 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

a vehicle of instruction to young princes, and 
to the children of great men, by preceptors too 
obsequious, or too gentle. But kings, and per- 
sons of high rank, who wish their heirs and 
successors to maintain the dignity of exalted 
station, rather by virtuous and useful, than by 
brilliant and imposing actions, will not entrust 
the education of their offspring to instructors, 
who want courage and address to imprint on the 
minds of their illustrious pupils, from the 
earliest period of their education, at once a 
reverence for truth, and the most direct and 
simple maxims of morality. 

Where these momentous objects are to be 
first insinuated through the circuitous and timid 
medium of fable, it seems impossible, that a 
pupil of ordinary penetration should not soon 
discover, that his teacher is afraid of surprizing, 
or alarming him, by a more direct and natural 
method ; nor is it unlikely, he should be led, 
after some time, to doubt his instructor's earnest- 
ness or sincerity; and thence to question the 
necessity of learning that, which there has been 
any fear or hesitation of directly inculcating. 

This would be no. unnatural process of the 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 



mind. If this way of instilling the first moral 
lessons appear exceptionable in the very case, to 
which it seemed originally best adapted ; why 
should it be so indiscriminately used in other 
situations, where so little appearance of necessity 
or propriety can be pleaded for it ? It should 
seem then a fair conclusion, that the use of 
fables would, in every institution of childhood 
and youth, be best deferred 'till a certain ma- 
turity of judgment permits it without danger. 

Every one knows the wise and excellent pur- 
poses to which fables have been, and may be 
applied, in addressing the passions and prejudices 
of sovereigns, and other men in the actual 
possession of power ; or large assemblies of 
the people in times of commotion or tumult ; 
in order to correct flagrant abuses of autho- 
rity, or prevent public violence ; as in the case 
of Nathan's apologue to the king of Israel; 
that of Menenius Agrippa to the people of 
Rome, and of our Saviour's parables to the 
Rulers, Rabbis, and the people of the Jews. 
Circumstances like these, probably enough, 
gave rise to the invention of fables : but as 
they could have wrought no effect unless under- 
stood by those to whom they were addressed, if 



INTRODUCTION. t XV 

seems preposterous to have used them indiscri- 
minately as means of moral instruction to young 
children ; by whom their main purpose is rarely 
comprehended. 

SECTION V. 

Themes first to be composed on Fables. 

There is another purpose of too much ad- 
vantage to be overlooked, which these fables, 
through the questions raised upon them, are cal- 
culated to answer. Although, even among well- 
educated parents, it is not every one who may 
be found able to make all the use of this book, 
which it is designed to answer, none will find it 
difficult to instruct the family pupil of proper 
age, how much these questions will facilitate, at 
its commencement, that useful exercise, the 
composition of themes. Can this be begun 
upon a better plan than that of writing moral 
applications to fables, with such hints and 
suggestions of topics, as these questions will be 
found to exhibit ? Will not this be a much 
easier method than setting out at once on some 
single moral sentiment or adage, usually given 
for the subject of a theme ? This intimation of 
topics in the form of questions, sets the mind to 



XVI . INTRODUCTION. 



_ 

work, as has been observed above, for answers ; 
and thence for the investigation of matter to 
expand them. 

SECTION VI. 

Another use of the Questions. 

Questions in this way, may also be considered^ 
as so many cases, or different points of view, 
however nearly connected, in which the same 
fable, or indeed moral subjects in general, may 
be regarded. They may sow the seeds of ca- 
suistry in the juvenile thinker's mind, and make 
him aware, what errors may arise from prema- 
ture decision. Much as some persons may ad- 
mire a decisive turn of mind, and fancy it a 
mark of energy and perhaps of ability, it ought, 
during a course of education, to be very jealously ■ 
watched by preceptors, as much more likely, in 
future life, to lead to error than to truth. It 
may dispatch business ; but it will often fly in 
the face of justice. A hesitating mind in youth 
is much more likely to become a logical and 
philosophical one, than a mind naturally preci- 
pitate and decisive : it waits for, and weighs the 
sober results of investigation and experiment. 
It has been related as an anecdote of a great 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

lawyer, who formerly presided in one of the 
Courts of Westminster Hall, that it had become 
a maxim with him, in the decision of causes on 
the bench, that, " the first object was dispatch, 
u and then justice." Such a maxim as this, 
whether in law, or in the economy of common 
life, may impose upon the superficial under the 
appearance of quick discernment, or of the 
intuition of genius ; but it is dangerous in pro*- 
portion to its plausibility. Respecting the ad- 
ministration of justice, it luckily, however, 
presents no prepossessing description of pro- 
fessional principle, or of solid ability. But, as 
far as it were adopted, it should appear a much 
worse extreme than the famous delay of the 
law r ; so much, on the opposite side, a more 
common subject of complaint. In countries, 
where the ministers of justice are proverbially 
corrupt, this maxim might be a short way for a 
lawyer to make his fortune, and it would often be 
found the very shortest for his client to lose one. 

SECTION VII. 

Manner and stile of the Fables, conducive to 
natural reading. 

But the writer proceeds now to the last useful 
purpose, which he has particularly intended his 



XVU1 INTRODUCTION. 



own fables to answer — and that is, the art of 
reading naturally. Nothing is more true, than 
that, where ill methods of education, bad ex- 
amples, or other causes have misguided nature in 
any respect, to do a thing naturally afterwards, 
strange as it may seem, then becomes an art; 
and sometimes a very difficult one to learn. 
The strange tones, into which children are so 
idly, and in schools of a lower order, so gene- 
rally suffered to fall, may justly be reckoned 
among the most unnatural of all human noises, 
the London cries hardly excepted. To remedy 
corruption in so important an article, as far as a 
stile and manner of writing can be made sub- 
servient to this end, with the assistance and 
direction of parents and preceptors in their sons 
and daughters reading of these fables, has been 
a wish anxiously felt throughout the composition 
of them. With this view, they are written in the 
familiar and idiomatic language of conversation ; 
and the better to consult the easy stile of narra- 
tion, the periods are generally constructed with 
as few inversions as possible in poetic writing ; 
and, for the same reason, the utmost freedom 
has been used in the variety of the measures, and 
the placing of the rhymes. The writer never 
recollects, without a feeling of disgust, the 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

monotonous and tiresome effects he has often 
experienced in hearing ill-taught children re- 
peat the fables of Gay. The same kind of 
chaunt, unvaried modulation, and cadence of 
voice, returning every two lines through the 
same rhymed couplet of four feet, without 
change, or hope of change, from the beginning 
to the end of the fable, is a wearisome exercise 
of patience to a tolerably educated ear, taught 
to listen to the voice of nature ; and is, at the 
same time, as bad a manner of reading, or of 
reciting, as can well be imagined. It has there- 
fore been the writer's object, in these fables, to 
consult all practicable variety in the several 
respects mentioned ; so that young people, in 
reading them frequently aloud, cannot easily 
desert those tones, modulations, accents, and 
cadences, which nature always gives the voice 
in conversation ; or they will scarcely fail to 
recover them, if lost under injudicious or vulgar 
tuition. At worst; any sensible well-educated 
parent may avail himself of these pleasant op- 
portunities of fire-side reading, to become their 
tutor, tinder the guidance of Nature. She will 
never be interrogated on the subject of her own 
true tones, &c. in the speaking, and conse- 
quently the reading of any passage whatever* 



XX INTRODUCTION. 



without returning a right answer. In this exer- 
cise will always be one of the best schools for 
the true art of reading. Nature is not easily 
banished from the family fire-side, however in 
this matter she may appear exiled from some 
of our seminaries of education. 

SECTION VIII. 

This topic pursued, from the reading of Fables 

to that of other f 07 ms of versificatio?i. 

In order to carry this article of juvenile im- 
provement to its due extent, that is, to reading, 
with propriety, every species of poetic numbers, 
might it not be an advisable exercise, after due 
practice in the reading, or recitation of fables, 
in varied measure, if young persons were to pro- 
ceed next to the reading of blank verse ; which 
would be found much easier to be read, or recited 
naturally, than the rhymed couplet of Dryden, 
Pope, Young, or Hay ley, &c. Although this 
introduction to the following fables does not 
lead the writer necessarily beyond the uses, to 
which he has wished them to be applied, he 
will perhaps be excused for yielding to the 
temptation, he feels, of naming a few of our 
poets, in the order which he conceives some 
of their works well calculated for forming or 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

improving, that very pleasant and useful member 
of domestic society, the fire-side reader. 

Were he then next to proceed to the exercise 
of reading blank verse, it may be questioned, 
whether any thing could be selected for his 
commencement in preference to the " Splendid 
Shilling," of Philips. This might be succeeded 
by his poem on " Cyder," and that by Cowper's 
Task, Mason's Garden, Akenside's Pleasures of 
the Imagination ; whence Cumberland's Calvary, 
much of it in the true spirit of Milton, would 
lead him to the " Paradise Lost." 

Now to read poems of this varied structure, in- 
cluding those of the tragic drama, naturally and 
unaffectedly, it must be understood, that, with 
a much slower and more deliberate manner than 
would be proper for fables and familiar tales 
in verse, and with a suitable elevation in the 
pitch, and due solemnity in the tone of the 
voice, the Deri/ same modulations as in our 
ordinary discourse^ only more sustained on ac- 
count of the length of the periods, must accom- 
pany the whole process; and precisely the 
same emphasis and cadence, pauses and stops, 
us in conversation. 



XXII INTRODUCTION. 

The reading of our tragic dramas, with a 
due attention to nature in the foregoing particu- 
lars, without the school-boy's puling whine, or 
that pompous mouthing of young actors, which 
answers their theatric strut outraged in treading 
the stage, will be found to require much reso- 
lute practice, and patient recollection under the 
guidance of good sense, and the delicate taste 
acquired by liberal education. The elegant 
translations we possess of the Greek tragedians 
by Franklin, Potter, and Woodhull ; — Mason's 
Elfrida and Caractacus, as chaste models of 
classic taste, and of varied and flowing versifica- 
tion, may be safely proposed in this department 
of reading or recitation. These may be followed 
by selections from the family Shakespear; 
for selected the pieces must be, that nothing 
may excite the blush of ingenuous youth. 
What parent, in his senses, will not join with 
the writer in the reprobation of reading, of 
whatever kind, that can only be admitted at 
the expence of religion and good manners ? 

As some practice will already have taken place 
through the chorusses of the Greek drama, &c. 
in the difficult task of reading lyric poetry, 
which may properly succeed blank verse, it 



INTRODUCTION. XXU1 

will suffice to mention Pomfret's Sacred Pin- 
darics, equally pious and sublime ; Akenside's 
Ode to Lord Huntingdon ; Collins's Ode on the 
Passions; the two great Odes of Gray; and 
Mason's Fall of Babylon, &c. The Alexander's 
Feast of Dryden could not, without offence to 
the critics, want recommendation here, were 
there not a line or two in it, presenting images 
by no means unexceptionable. 

As it does not seem necessary to distinguish 
the stanza of Spenser from lyric numbers, this 
praxis for the proper reading of poetry may now 
conclude with authors, not uncommonly Jirst 
taken up for this purpose ; those we mean, who 
have chiefly written in the heroic or rhymed 
couplet of ten syllables, as Dryden, Pope, 
Young, Goldsmith, Hay ley, &c. To spare the 
trouble of selection from Drydeti, first mentioned, 
in order to avoid the licentious and immoral, 
what could we better put into the young 
reader's hands, at the family fire-side, than his 
translation of the iEneid ? Pope's Homer 
should obviously come next. The name of 
Young suggests his " Fame, the Universal Pas- 
sion;" and that of Goldsmith his "Traveller" 
and "Deserted Village." Selections from the 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



rest may be left to that moral taste and sentiment, 
which, in well-educated families, ought to be 
supposed the Christian Lar, or tutelary genius 
of the chimney-corner. 

It will have been understood, that poems in the 
rhymed couplet have been placed last in these sug- 
gestions, as being less likely to be read without 
deviation from the true tones of nature^ than any 
species of a more varied metre ; the latter admit- 
ting a less regular disposition of rhymes, a more 
flowing rhythm, and, in general, longer periods. 
The rock on which ordinary or ill-taught 
readers split, in the recital of our equipoised 
couplet, is that of repeating the same cadence 
at the end of every second line, which produces 
a wearisome and soporiferous eifect. This can? 
be prevented by nothing but a resolute attention 
to the sense of each period, whenever suspended 
(as it ought to be, as often as possible), beyond 
the close of the second line, by a strict observance 
of the single or the double pause, as one or 
both occur in every verse ; and by a due 
knowledge and nice practice of the laws of 
punctuation. For what regards accent and 
emphasis, in the latter of which nature is our 
sole instructress, we cannot better lengthen 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

this introduction than with a judicious and 
luminous passage from Sheridan's Art of Reading, 

* " ' Emphasis, discharges in sentences, the 
6 same kind of office, that accent does in words. 
1 As accent is the link which ties syllables 
i together, and forms them into words ; so 
1 emphasis unites words together, and forms 
i them into sentences, or members of sentences. 
' As accent dignifies the syllable on which it 
i is laid, and makes it more distinguished by 
i the ear than the rest ; so emphasis ennobles 
1 the word to which it belongs, and presents 
i it in a stronger light to the understanding. 

* Accent is the mark which distinguishes words 
i from each other, as simple types of our ideas, 
1 without reference to the mutual relation in 
i which they stand to each other. Emphasis 

* is the mark, which points out their several 
1 degrees of relationship, in their various 
1 combinations, and the rank which they hold 
i in the mind. Were there no accents, words 

* would be resolved into their original syllables ; 
4 were there no emphasis, sentences would be 
c resolved into their original words ; and, in 

* Lecture 4th on Elocution. 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 



' this case,, the hearer must be at the pains 
6 himself, first, of making out the words, and 
c afterwards their meaning. Whereas, by the 
< use of accent and emphasis, words, and their 
i meaning, being pointed out by certain marks, 
' at the same time they are uttered, the hearer 
' has all trouble saved, but that of listening ; 
c and can accompany the speaker at the same 
i pace that he goes, with as clear a compre- 
' hension of the matter offered to his consi- 
i deration, as the speaker himself has, if he 
$ delivers himself well.' 

u From this account it might appear, that 
emphasis is only a more forcible accent than 
ordinary laid upon the word to which it belongs, 
and that it is exactly of the same nature, differing 
only in degree of force ; an opinion, which, to 
the great prejudice of elocution, has too gene- 
rally prevailed. But there is an absolute and 
constitutional difference, between accent and 
emphasis, as certainly there ought to be, which 
consists in this ; that every emphatic syllable, 
besides a greater stress, is marked also by a 
change of note in the voice. To shew the 
necessity of this, we need only observe, that the 
mind, in communicating its ideas, is in a con- 



INTRODUCTION. XXVll 

tinual state of activity, emotion, or agitation, 
from the different effects which those ideas 
produce on the mind of the speaker. Now, as 
the end of such communication is not merely to 
lay open the ideas, but also all the different 
feelings which they excite in him who utters 
them, there must be some other marks beside 
words, to manifest these ; as words uttered in a 
monotonous state, can only represent a similar 
state of mind, perfectly free from all activity or 
emotion. As the communication of these inter- 
nal feelings was a matter of much more conse- 
quence in our social intercourse, than the mere 
conveying of ideas ; so the author of our being 
did not leave the invention of this language, as 
in the other case, to man, but stamped it himself 
upon our nature, in the same manner as he has 
done with regard to the rest of the animal 
world, who all express their various feelings, by 
various tones. Only our's, from the superior 
rank that we hold, is infinitely more compre- 
hensive ; as there is not an act of the mind, an 
exertion of the fancy, or an emotion of the 
heart, which have not their peculiar tone, or 
note of the voice, by which they are to be ex- 
pressed, all suited in the exactest proportion, to 
the several degrees of internal feeling." 



XXV1U INTRODUCTION. 

SECTION IX. 

Hints on the natural reading of Prose* 

This admirable passage might have closed 
our introduction ; yet as it may be thought 
strange, that not a word should have been said 
on the natural reading of prose, except that the 
passage just cited applies equally to prose and 
verse, we would briefly notice, that, wherever 
the correction of unnatural habits in the reading 
of poetry may have been intended, it has been 
taken for granted, that persons once made sen- 
sible of them, could not fail to have examined r 
whether ill habits might not have affected their 
prose reading, and that they would doubtless 
begin a reform in this quarter, where it would 
most easily be made. 

After the directions above recommended, 
nothing, in adverting to the topic of prose 
reading, can be necessary but to repeat, in three 
words, the great, the first, and the last rule, of 
attentively comparing the tones, fyc. in reading, 
with those of nature, which we use in con- 
versing, and of constantly recurring to these tones 
for the correction of any improper habits. To 



-, INTRODUCTION, XXIX 

facilitate, and ultimately effect the success of 
this object, the praxis of prose reading should 
begin with familiar dialogues ; and what, in 
this department, could be more advantageously 
recommended than Fontenelle's Dialogues of the 
Dead, whether the original, or the translation, 
and those of Lord Lyttleton under the same 
title ? Though Bishop Hurd's dialogues are 
written with truly classic taste, and in the purest 
stile ; and are equally entertaining and instruc- 
tive ; yet being, on account of their subjects, 
less familiar than the foregoing, they might 
better follow than precede the reading of a few 
comedies. For natural stile of dialogue few 
comedies in our language can be compared 
with Addison's " Drummer." Of the more 
modern ones, those, I believe, of Goldsmith 
and Cumberland may be read to family parties, 
without much, or perhaps any selection. The 
elegant dialogues of Hurd may close the praxis 
of prose reading. 

Although the preceding suggestions are con- 
fessedly much too far from being sufficiently 
comprehensive to be offered as formal precepts 
for those, whose professions and situations in 
life may oblige them to address large assemblies 



XXX INTRODUCTION, 



in public, it is nevertheless conceived, that to 
gentlemen educating for the pulpit, the bar, 
or the senate, they may prove at least useful 
intimations ; and particularly to such of them 
as want opportunity, leisure, or convenience, to 
attend the public lecturers in elocution. It is 
scarcely doubted, however, that they will suffice 
for the instruction of those, for whose use they 
are more directly intended ; young persons of 
either sex, desirous to acquit themselves, agree- 
ably and with propriety, as readers to small family 
circles. These valuable contributors to domestic 
knowledge and amusement, since the education 
of females at our higher seminaries, and of the 
daughters of clergymen at home, has taken a 
larger and more liberal compass than formerly^ 
are become a numerous class in cultivated 
society : nor do we hesitate to augur, that its 
moral improvement and happiness will keep 
pace with their multiplication. 

The more thinking part of the world may be 
disposed to give credit to this plan of domestic 
improvement, from consideration of the exces- 
sive pressure of these times, (this martial age) 
in numberless families confined to live on fixed, 
moderate, and often strait incomes, in the middle 



INTRODUCTION. XXXI 

rank of British society ; into which may be 
reckoned the great body of the clergy. Does 
not an indispensable economy reduce a majority 
of such families to the necessity of living 
within themselves at home ; at least greatly to 
narrow the circle of their acquaintance ? The 
writer of these pages is free to confess, the 
former case has, for several years, been the ne- 
cessary effect of a limited income on himself 
and his own family. They, having been pre- 
vented from stepping, far, or often^ beyond their 
own threshold for the enjoyment of society, have 
found reason to congratulate themselves on the 
delightful resource of family reading; not sel- 
dom, pleasantly varied by the conversation it is 
naturally calculated to promote. 

By persons, not already hackneyed in dissi- 
pation, inclined to try the experiment, it might, 
pretty generally perhaps, be found no unin- 
teresting substitute ; a healthy one we are sure 
it would be — 

For midnight suppers, revel, dance, and song, 
Play, stare, and press in fashion's giddy throng. 

That parents aftd the elders of families, in 
some known instances, where the experiment 



XX'Xll INTRODUCTION. 



has been made, should without regret have re- 
nounced even the more tranquil pleasures of 
society for intellectual pleasures at home, ought 
to be no subject of wonder, though perchance 
it may ; but that the younger members should 
after sufficient trial, have declared they felt no 
diminution of their happiness in the change, 
has been matter of no unjust triumph. — 
Whether, however, such had been the result of 
the experiment or not, there seemed, on account 
of inauspicious times, no alternative between 
quiet retirement, books, and reflection, and the 
senseless resource of those, whose custom it is 
to borrow of the next year, in order to live 
extravagantly in this. 

But to conclude, if these fables, from their 
application to the three particular purposes for 
which they are professedly intended, viz : the 
exercise of investigation and reasoning, — the 
facilitating the composition of themes, — and the 
practice of natural reading, — should become to 
some perceptible ex.tent y instrumental to the in- 
tellectual improvement, and innocent satisfac- 
tions of domestic society, though his hopes 
stretch considerably further, the writer will not 
lose his reward. And should his bookseller. 



INTRODUCTION. XXX111 

from any encouraging demand for this little 
volume, judge them to have contributed some- 
thing to the amusement of readers in the world 
at large, a few more of the writer's early sleepless 
morning hours may not perhaps be ill employed 
for the production of another volume. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



FABLE P.UrE 

I. The Grasshopper and the Ant .... 37 

II. The Wallet •- 42 

III, The Swallow and small Birds 46 

IV. The Philosopher's Cottage 52 

V. iEsop at Marbles 57 

VI. The Kite and the Pigeons 61 

VII. A King for the Frogs 65 

VIII. The Fox and the Stork 69 

IX. The Oak and the Reed 73 

X. The Old Bachelor and his two Mistresses 77 

XI. The Women and the Secret 81 

XII. The Hornets and the Bees 87 

XIII. The Wolf and the Mastiff 93 

XIV. The Cat and the Rats 103 

XV. Simonides preserved by the Gods 107 

XVI. The Husbandman and Stag 116 

XVII. TheTwoMules .,- 122 

XVIII. The Wolf and the Lamb 126 

XIX. The Heifer, the Goat, and the Sheep, in 

partnership with the Lion 130 

XX. The Beau Jackdaw 133 

XXI. An Ass too free and easy 137 

XXII. The Frog and the Ox 141 

XXIII. The Crow, the Fox, and the Rook . 146 

XXIV. Caesar's Reward of Officiousness 153 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



FABLE PAGE 

XXV. The Eagle and the Raven 15T 

XXVI. The Cock and the Jewel 162 

XXVII. The Lion and Ass a hunting 168 

XXVIII. The Owl and the Grasshopper 171 

XXIX. The Wolf and the Crane 176 

XXX. The Sensible Ass 1 . . 180 

XXXI. The Child and the Sc|^gmaster 183 

XXXII. The Ape and the DoljSin 186 

XXXII I. The two Dogs 190 

XXXIV. The Town and Country Rat 195 

XXXV. The Woodman and Death 200 

XXXVI. The Lion going to War 205 

XXXVII. The Rat and the Elephant 209 

XXXVIII. The Power of Fable 213 



FABLES, &c. 



FABLE I. 



THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT. 

A Grasshopper, who sung all summer long, 

Found, when November's frosts set in. 
No winter stores were gather'd by a song ; 
No fly ; no worm ; — what wonder she look'd thin ? 
Furnish'd at least with beggar's cant, 
Away she hops to neighbour Ant. 
" Famine! she cries, behold me starving! 
" While all, one needs, is yours for carving. 
u Lend me, good soul, a few loose grains, or so, 
" Just till next season ; ('tis at no great distance) 
u I ask but for a mere subsistence : 
f How good my credit is, you know. — 
Ere harvest comes, she takes upon her, 
At the first moment it is due, 
Full payment, on an insect's honour, 
Of principal and int'rest too. 
The Ant, so cautious of her spending, 
Be sure, was never prone to lending : — 
" Tell me, in winter, you that beg, or borrow, 

E 



38 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

" How is't, the summer season you employ ?" — 
6i In nought but mirth and joy :" 
" Both day and night (a fig for sorrow !) 
" I sing, regardless what may hap to-morrow ; 
u Nought welcome but time present." — 
" Oh ! this, replies the Ant, is mighty pleasant: 
" Thus, leaving all your livelihood to chance, 
" You've sung most n^rrily — and now, may 
dance." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 39 



QUESTIONS 

FOR INVESTIGATING THE MORAL INSTRUCTION 
DEDUCIBLE FROM THE FABLE. 

1. Examiner. — What characters among men 
are the Grasshopper and the Ant intended by the 
fabulist to represent ? 

Respondent. — The former insect, that of an 
idle, giddy, and thoughtless spendthrift ; the latter, 
a person parsimoniously prudent. 

2. Ex. — Is the character of the Ant in all re- 
spects to be imitated ? 

Res. — Not altogether. 

3. Ex. — Where is it defective, or worthy of 
blame ? 

Res. — In her parsimony. 

4. Ex. — Was there any fault in her not lending 
to the Grasshopper ? 

Res. — None, I think. 

5. Ex. — But might not a person in good cir- 
cumstances, or well provided with store, like 
the Ant, lend to a neighbour consistently with 
prudence ? 

Res. — Yes, surely. 

6. Ex. — Why then should she not have lent 
to the Grasshopper ? 



40 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — Because, as lending presupposes the right, 
and generally, the expectation of being repaid, it 
would have been incompatible with her prudence 
to lend, where there was no better security for 
repayment than the promise of such a prodigal as 
the Grasshopper. 

7. Ex. — But should not famine, and the ex- 
treme distress of a neighbour, which the Ant did 
not pretend to doubt, have induced her at least to 
give something to the relief of her present ne- 
cessities ? 

Res. — They ought to have been an irresistible 
plea. 

8. Ex. — Why did she not yield to it? 

Res. — Because a parsimonious spirit consists ill 
with charity. 

9. Ex. — Perhaps the Ant waited to be asked 
for alms ? 

Res. — She would have granted nothing to 
begging. 

10. Ex. — Does the general and proper defini- 
tion of charity exclude the idea of parsimony ? 

Res. — Surely, it does. 

11. Ex. — But might not that parsimony, by 
which wealth is saved at least, if not gained, en- 
able a parsimonious character to become a charita- 
ble one ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 41 

Res. — Undoubtedly : but this is no apology for 
parsimony. The ability to be charitable, and the 
disposition to be so, are widely different things. 

12. Ex. — What is the comparative value of 
the two characters in the fable, morally considered ? 

Res. — The Grasshopper is described without 
any good quality : the Ant, as possessing the virtue 
of prudence, but accompanied with a vice, as 
we* too often see it in the world, which is apt to 
confine the benefit of that virtue solely to its 
possessor. 

13. Ex. — What then makes the moral of the 
present fable ? 

Res. — The disappointment and increased dis- 
tress, suffered by the Grasshopper from the Ant's 
refusal to lend, shews the unhappy consequences 
which generally await an idle, giddy, and thought- 
less life ; and this was doubtless the intention of 
the fabulist. 



42 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE II. 

THE WALLET. 

Says Jove, one day, " let every creature 
u That breathes, approach the footstool of my throne: 

" Whatever limb, or feature 
u As ugly, or cleform'd, his humour strikes, 

u Complexion, fair or brown ; 

" Let him but mention his dislikes, 

" My remedy shall soon be shewn. 
;; Hark, Monkey, speak you first ; nor ask me why; 

" Behold these animals all round you ; 
" Nor let their various forms, or size confound you : 

c ? Their beauties closely all descry, 

u While none at home escape your eye ; 
< <- Then balance yours 'gainst theirs ; all fairly tried, 
u And partiality aside, 

u Say, with thyself art fully satisfied ?" — 
« Why not ? 

u Four legs, like all the rest, I've got : 
a And my whole person, tho' I'm far from blind, 

a Quite faultless do I find. 
« But let friend Bruin there, like something hurl'd, 

* Half lick'd, into our nether world, 

u Believe me, as I hate to fawn, 
" And he'll not sit, to have his picture drawn.' 9 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 43 

Bruin comes forward : All believed, 

His shape and visage to lament ; 

But mark (what no one had conceived) 

No creature more content ! 
u The Elephant,he thought, would much be mended, 
" That shapeless mass, but fit to make one smile, 
« Were his ears crop'd, and tail a bit extended," 

The Elephant, with brains so gifted, 

Talk'd just in the same stile. 
u So tall, so proper, o'er the rest so lifted, 

u He in himself saw nothing wrong ; 
u But thought the Whale was monstrously too long," 

The Ant too, all at home just right, 
Believ'd herself a giant to the Mite. 
Jove now dismiss'd this self-contented crew ; 

Reproving each, where due. 

But, above all, he found mankind 

To their own faults by far most blind ; 
Moles to themselves ; but Lynxes to each other : 
With the same optics, to themselves so kind, 

They ne'er behold a brother. 

But so 't has been, I know not how, 

From Father Adam's time till now ; 
In younger times, no less than older, 

Each bears a wallet on his shoulder : 

In front his neighbours' faults we find ; 

His own, in that snug pocket flung behind. 



44 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS,* &c. 

1. Examiner. — What is it that renders us so 
strangely blind to our own imperfections ? 

Respondent. — Self-love. 

2. Ex. — Why then has it been so deeply im- 
planted in every human breast ? 

Res. — To carry us forward to every improve- 
ment of our nature : without it we should be 
nothing but imperfection. Had we- no value for 
ourselves, we should neglect every thing but the 
indulgence of our passions, which could not fail 
to produce the utmost mental deformity. 

3. Ex. — Why do we discern our neighbours' 
faults so much more clearly than our own ? 

f£ ES . — Because our love for others (those nearest 
us excepted) seldom prevents us from turning 
upon them a much more attentive and impartial 
eye. 

4. Ex. — Whence is it, that we are apt to feel 
too much satisfaction in discovering the failings of 
others ? 

* N.B. That the title of Questions, 8fc. here and throughout 
the following pages, imports their being all intended for the 
purpose of investigating moral instruction, whether direct or 
collateral, from a preceding fable. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 45 

Res. — Because we flatter ourselves, they are 
greater than our own ; whereas the sight of our own 
foibles, without this comparison, gives us pain. 

5. Ex. — But is not this a salutary pain ? 
Res. — Without doubt, it is. 

6. Ex. — But why so ? 

Res. — Because we are moved by its impression, 
to become better acquainted with ourselves. 

7. Ex. — Since, of all knowledge, that of our- 
selves is the most desirable, is not self-love, which 
often stands so much in our way of acquiring it, 
and which yet you have affirmed to be so useful 
in carrying us on to excellence, a passion which 
makes man inconsistent with himself in its pro- 
ducing such contrary effects ? 

Res. — Yes ; it does, like all other passions, when- 
ever applied to a wrong object, or exceeding their 
due measure. 

8. Ex. — You are undoubtedly speaking here of 
such passions only, as may be gratified under due 
regulations of religion and morality ; but are there 
not passions, of which our nature seems to have 
been made susceptible, for the merit only of being 
opposed and subdued, as a test of our virtue ? 

Res. — Yes ; the malignant passions ; as malice, 
envy, hatred of our species, and those marked for 
abhorrence — the unnatural and monstrous* 



46 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

i 

FABLE III. 

THE SWALLOW AND SMALL BIRDS. 

The travell'd spark, had done as well 
Ne'er to have left retirement's humble cell, 
As come, no wiser than his neighbours, home. 

A Swallow, given much to roam, 
Great knowledge, who had gain'd by sea and land, 
The fruit of wide experience had at hand. 

She was so mighty weather-wise, 

No change in th' elements could rise, 

Which she had not foreseen. 

Her wits so active and so keen 

She spared, on no occasion, showing. 
It happen'd, at the season of hemp sowing. 

She saw a peasant flinging seed, 
To furrow after furrow, without end. 

With the kind warning of a friend, 

She bade the little birds take heed ; 
And told 'em, with a doleful length of face, 
She felt a sad foreboding of their case. 
For her own part, to foreign climes no stranger, 

She could set off, and 'scape the danger. 
" Ye little folks ! she cries, that live at home, 

" Come hither, for a moment, come ; 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 47 

" Observe, that busy hand there strewing 
" What some unlucky day, alas ! too near, 

" May prove, my friends, your utter ruin. 

" Ah ! what a crop (I shake with fear) 
ic Of nets, gins, snares, foresee I springing, 

66 Where'er that wretch his seed is flinging 1 

" Beware, for if ye heed me not ; 
u Imprisonment, or death, is sure your lot! 

u Go then, nor be my counsel vain ; 

" Peck up, and swallow every grain." 

What did this graceless crew but laugh ? 
Exclaiming : " Too much trouble this by half !" 

Soon now each grain of hemp was seen, 

Shot above ground, and all was green. 

Our prophetess, although unheeded, 

Still gave the good advice they needed. 

" Haste, haste, and pluck up blade by blade, 

" The produce of that cursed grain; 

" Or trust me, your destruction's plain." 
Hear, how they flout at all she said : 
u Hence, idle fortune-teller," all exclaim, 

" A pretty business this, old dame ! 

u To execute your sage commands, 

a Would want at least a thousand hands." 
The hemp, behold, now getting nearly ripe. 

The Swallow opens once again : — *. 
" Comes crop too soon from evil grain ! 



48 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



" Though to deaf ears, thus far, I vainly pipe, 

" Yet three words more, and I have done. 
u When mow'd the crop, and harvest carried in, 

" You find hostilities begun ; 
" And wrought at length, the net^ the snare, the gin, 
" Cease thus, my little friends, to fly about ; 

" Keep safe conceal'd, and ne'er stir out. 
u The Crane, Duck, Woodcock, have resource: 

u A jaunt with me, to distant climes, 

" These all can take, in dang'rous times: 

" Yours must be quite a different course. 
" While we o'er seas and desarts wing our way, 
u Whether to Greenland, or to Africa ; 

" You have no place for safety left, 
" But some snug hole, which chance has cleft 

" In a lone rock, or castle wall : 
" There's your sole refuge, trust me, one and all." — 

Our small birds treat the Swallow's lecture, 

As idle chatter ; mere conjecture. 
Like Homer's Trojans in the days of yore, 
Some yawn'd, when poor Cassandra prophecied ; 
Some giggled ; others said, she lied ; 

None wished to hear her more. 
But mark the consequence : alike they're taken ; 

Nor bird, nor Trojan sav'd his bacon. 
We listen to our instincts ; (they speak home) 
Mindless of ills foretold us, till they come. 



FABLES FOR THE FXRE-SiDE. 49 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Why were the small birds so 
indisposed to listen to the Swallow's good advice ? 

Respondent. — From that ignorance, which na- 
turally accompanies inexperience. 

2. Ex. — But does not the world abound in pre- 
tenders to prophecy, whose predictions never come 
to pass ? 

Res. — It does. 

3. Ex. — Were not the small birds then excul- 
pated for their want of confidence ? 

Res. — Certainly not, unless they had examined, 
which they did not, the ground of the Swallow's 
pretensions. 

4. Ex. — Did the Swallow afford them sufficient 
grounds, on which to have judged more candidly ? 

Res. — Certainly she did ; or else the fable would 
have conveyed no moral. 

5. Ex. — What were they, as indicated by the 
fable ? 

Res. — First, her information, that one of the 
common uses of hemp was, to make nets, gins^ 
and snares, on purpose to entrap small birds ; and 
secondly, because having explained to them, how 
easily she herself could avoid them, she proved 



50 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

her warning to have had no view but to their 
safety: she was therefore quite disinterested. 

6. Ex. — Since gipseys, soothsayers, and astro- 
logers, have always abused the credulity of man- 
kind, are there no means of divining future events ? 

Res. — No certain ones, but the inspirations of 
heaven. 

7. Ex. — How are we to distinguish such pre- 
dictions as those of the Swallow from what is 
properly called prophecy ? 

Res. — The Swallow's foresight consisted in no- 
thing but foreseeing the common effects of natural 
causes ; the gift of prophecy is supernatural. 

8. Ex. — What classes of men are supposed to 
possess the greatest share of the Swallow's fore- 
sight ? 

Res. — In the first place, those profound ob- 
servers of the passions, characters, and conduct of 
men, who, understanding the motives from which 
they most commonly act, can foretel how they 
will probably act under any given circumstances, 
at any future time : in the second place, those ob- 
servers and experimentalists, conversant with the 
general phenomena of the animal, vegetable, and 
mineral worlds, who are able to trace effects to 
their causes, and vice versa ; and thus to invent, 
improve, and bring to perfection, all those arts 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 51 

and sciences, by which these kingdoms of nature 
are brought under the dominion of man, and 
thus made subservient to his benefit, convenience, 
and happiness. 

9. Ex. — To what characters are these two 
classes properly entitled ? 

Res. — The former, to that of moral, the latter, 
to that of natural, philosophers. 



52 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

FABLE IV. 

THE PHILOSOPHER'S COTTAGE. 

The name of friendship is a common sound ; 

But tell me, where the thing itself is found ? 
Philosophers, as we are told, 
Eat, drink, and sleep like other men, 

And, like them, burn with heat, and quake with cold; 
So that, the shallowest wit may ken 

Why Socrates might want to build a house. 
A house he built ; but 'twas so small, 

The connoisseurs, who passed, said, one and all, 
u This a mansion for a mouse." 
Your gentry, who had proverbs pat, 
Cried : " Here is not room to swing a cat." 
The wise man, hearing this remark, 
Observed, nor was his meaning dark, 
" My cot will answer all my ends, 

" Happy were I, to fill it but with friends." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 53 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. — Examiner. — Why is true friendship, one 
of the most desirable things in the world, so rarely 
found ? 

Respondent. — Because different persons, of 
minds, tempers, tastes, principles, and general cast 
of character, all nearly resembling each other, are 
seldom brought together for any sufficient length of 
time, to form such a connection, as deserves the 
name of friendship. 

2. Ex. — But cannot a true friendship subsist 
without these near resemblances ? 

Res. — It is, I believe, generally thought, that it 
cannot according to the definition of a perfect 
friendship. 

3. Ex. — How then would you define a perfect 
friendship ? 

Res. — Most of the terms are in my answer to 
the first question : Repeating them, I would say, 
that a perfect friendship is the union of minds, 
tempers, tastes, principles, and general cast of 
character, all so much alike in two different per« 
sons, as to dispose each to the other's interest with 
unalterable fidelity. Each will moreover regard, 
and consult the other's happiness at all times, 



54 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

equally with, and, oftentimes, much more than his 
own. 

4. Ex. — Is not this notion of friendship so 
exalted, as that, in some very particular circum- 
stance, one might be conceived to sacrifice his life 
for the other ? 

Res. — I think that might be expected from 
it. 

5. Ex. — But is not this then, a romantic notion, 
and almost absolutely impracticable ? 

Res* — The Christian moralists ought not to 
regard it as absolutely impracticable ; for an 
apostle has said, that, though " scarcely for a 
righteous man (i. e. a just one) will one die; yet^ 
peradventure for a good man" (i. e. one not only 
righteous, nor only religious, but uniting in himself 
moreover all the exalted qualities of this apostle's 
charity,) " some would even dare to die" — 
(Rom. 5.7.) Now such persons might be supposed 
to reach the idea of friendship, which our Saviour 
expressed in saying, " Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends"— (John 15. 13.) 

6. Ex. — Allow me to propose a question here on 
these words of our Lord, though remote from any 
thing suggested by the fable : Ought we not to 
infer from them, since no man could have greater 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 55 

love than to die for his friends, that he who, while 
declaring this, knew he should, shortly afterwards, 
lay down his lite, not only for his friends, but for 
his greatest enemies, must have been much more 
than man ? 

Res.— He must surely have expected, that when 
he should have not only done this, but have risen 
again for their justification, it would altogether be 
admitted, among many others, a cogent proof of his 
divinity. 

7. Ex. — But, to return, and that pointedly, to 
the main scope of the fable ; do you conceive, 
that Socrates meant more by friendship than the 
notion ordinarily attached to that connection by 
the thinking part of the world ? 

Res. — He probably meant nothing farther. 

8. Ex. — How then would you state that notion 
of friendship ? 

Res. — To be a social connection subsisting 
between virtuous persons, in which one party may, 
on all occasions, depend on the sincerity, candour, 
and fidelity of the other ; on a participation of his 
joys and sorrows ; and on a readiness, occasionally, 
to assist the wants of his friend, to his own incon- 
venience. 

9. Ex. — For such a connection, you don't 
seem to think the same similarity of disposition, 



56 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

character, &c. ; requisite, as in your definition of 
friendship above ? 

Res.— No : provided, that both parties are vir- 
tuous, there may be considerable dissimilarity in 
other respects. 

10. Ex. — And could Socrates think friends, 
answering your latter description, not easy to be 
met with ? 

R ES . — He certainly appears to have thought 
a small house would contain a greater number of 
them than most men are likely to find. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 57 



FABLE V. 

MSOP AT MARBLES. 

Suppose it Christmas, boys and girls from school, 
Smiling and joyous round your snug fire-side ; 
Were then my fable on their judgments tried, 
They'd each exclaim ; u I'm sure he was no fool, 
" Altho', you grave ones, should outvote it, 
" No fool, I'm sure, the man, who wrote it. 
" His moral, tho' to us not always clear, 

" We know, we can't mistake it here*" 
When a philosopher of Athens saw 

Old iEsop in the school-boy's ring, 

Intent upon a game at taw, 
At first he wonder'd at so new a thing. 

His wonder, ending in a laugh, 

He call'd the fabulist a calf. 

Our wit observing this effect, 

And never in retorting slow, 

Ask'd his companions for a bow. 
Now posing it unbent, with arch respect, 

Quoth he, " most easily, no doubt, 
iC Friend Greybeard, thou canst find this riddle 

out ;" 
The crowd ran gaping round the solemn stranger ; 
Puzzled, he knits his brow, foreseeing danger, 



58 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



Lest, if unable to resolve th' enigma, 

His wisdom should incur a stigma. 

But ab ! his utmost stretch of wit 
No plausible solution hit. 
" Know then, says ^Esop, since compell'd to yield, 

" You seem withdrawing from the field, 
u Continued tension quickly breaks the bow, 
c< Which, sometimes slacken'd, long its pow'rs 

may know. 
iC The sports of youth affect not to despise : 
" And pause awhile from letters, to be wise. v 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 59 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is this apologue meant solely 
to recommend relaxation from study in the case 
of young persons ? 

Respondent. — Probably not; but, if in^Esop's 
time this advice were much needed, under our own 
rational systems of scholastic discipline it certainly 
is not. No young persons, at our schools, intent 
upon their own improvement, can complain, that 
vacant time enough is not allowed them ; however 
delighted with the fabulist's method of recommend- 
ing it. 

2. Ex. — By old iEsop's mingling in the amuse- 
ments of school-boys, may not a much more general 
application of this fable have been intended ? 

Res. — It was more probably meant to shew, that 
too intense employment of the mind is hurtful at all 
ages and in all pursuits. 

3. Ex. — But does not the hurt, or the danger, 
seem most to arise from an intense application too 
long continued on the same object ? 

Res. — That, I believe, is the point, on which 
most stress is to be laid. 

4. Ex. — What is your reason for believing so ? 
Res. — That several of our amusements, as the 




&£N • 



60 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

games of chess, whist, and perhaps billiards, while 
they require more action of mind than of body, are 
often only resorted to for the sake of change, or to 
relieve the mind from some other study or pursuit, 
which perhaps had scarcely demanded severer 
attention. 

5. Ex. — How do you explain — " And pause 
awhile from letters, to be wise,"* — the concluding 
line of the fable ? 

Res. — All our reading and different studies 
should be allowed some time to rest in the mind, 
that, like seed sown in the ground, they may have 
their proper developement and growth, under the 
various processes of reflection, reasoning, actual 
observation, experience, &c. ; and be thus brought 
to maturity in the fruit of real knowledge and 
wisdom. People may otherwise be reading through- 
out their whole lives, and know nothing. 



* A line from Dr. Johnson's imitation of one of the Satires 
of Persius. 



I ■:» 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 61 

FABLE VI. 

THE KITE AND THE PIGEONS. 

He who commits his interests to a knave. 

Too free in offers of assistance, 

May find he meant but to enslave. 

And wish such kindness at a distance. 
The Pigeons fearful of rapacious might, 

Escaped the clutches of the Kite, 

By the rapidity of wing 

With which they 're form'd to spring. 
The ravisher, despairing of success, 
Thro' force of arms, 

Attempts to conquer their alarms 
By cunning and address. 

Then grieving for their weak condition, 
Lures them to listen to a proposition ; 
*f What pity ! that a people so defenceless 

" Should want a sovereign's protection : 

" Methinks, 'twere far from weak or senseless, 

" To try th' advantage of subjection." 

Little suspecting all he meant, 

The Pigeons easily consent : 

The Kite, in form elected king, 

As if t' afford immediate defence, 
Chuses the dovecoat for his residence, 



62 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

The palace soon begins to ring 
With cries of bloodshed and assassination. 

Regardless of his subjects weal, or right, 

Or his own oath at coronation, 
Nought made the tyrant's business, or delight, 

But murd'rous gripes, and devastation. 



J 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 63 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — In what former age have more 
extensive, or more fatal effects arisen from the 
cajolery of a tyrant, or has the conduct of the 
Kite been more eminently displayed, than in the 
present ? 

Respondent. — History, either ancient or mo- 
dern, affords perhaps no parallel instance. 

2. Ex. — To what can be attributed his wonder- 
ful fortune in finding such numerous flocks of 
Pigeons ? 

Res. — No causes more probable, can be as- 
signed, than the opportunities opened to him in the 
revolution of France, and that degeneracy of 
spirit in the states of Europe, arising, in some, 
from the corruption of too much wealth and pros- 
perity ; in others, from envy and competition, and 
all producing national disquiet, commotion, or 
unceasing war. These, altogether, have banished 
that political confidence indispensable to any firm 
alliance, or confederacy of nations between each 
other, which alone would have enabled them to 
resist the designs and projects of so insidious, and 
so victorious a tyrant. 

3. Ex. — Is there nothing to be found in private 



64 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



life analogous to the cruel tyranny of the Kite, and 
the folly of the Pigeons ? 

Res. — Yes ; and our suspicions may justly be 
awakened, whenever friendship, protection, or other 
great advantages are offered us by those, from 
whom we have no reason to expect them, and who, 
we know, have abused the trust and confidence of 
others. Something insidious generally follows, 
and persons, expecting some signal favour, become 
the pigeons of the fable. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 65 

FABLE VII. 

A KING FOR THE FROGS.* 

The Frogs as free, 
And happy too, as frogs need wish to be, 

Hopp'd where they pleas'd about their lake ; 
Not frogs in France knew more equality : 
And yet they grumbled (sure, for grumbling sake) 
Because they wanted, (could you guess the thing ?) 
Forsooth! the honour of a king. 
At length they form'd a congregation, 
And croak'd to Jupiter in supplication. 
He smiles, and all the gods around him stare, 

To hear so whimsical prayer. 

Yet Jove unwilling to deny 'em, 

Or meaning possibly to try 'em, 

Let down, into their echoing bog, 

His wooden majesty — king log. 
The sound and splashing drove 'em, helter skelter, 

At their wits' ends, to seek for shelter. 

Calmness and quiet soon succeeding, 

Courage returns : the Frogs resort 
About his majesty, to pay their court. 

* This Fable was written some years since ; the subject 
not being inapplicable to certain results of the French revo- 
lution, i 



66 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

But he, their loyalty not heeding, 
They shortly slacken'd in their breeding : 
Nor had he long within their state resided, 

Before his tameness was derided ; 
At length these graceless subjects, growing bolder, 
Play'd e'en at leap-frog o'er his royal shoulder ! 

Tired of a governor so humble, 

They soon began again to grumble, 

And begg'd of Jupiter another king, 
Who to their state might some advantage bring ; 

And be a little more — the thing. 
Yes : says the god, 
" A king I'll send ; and you shall feel his power." 
His word was sanctioned by an angry nod. 

Comes a voracious Stork ; an hour 
Sufficed him half the nation to devour. 

In deep affliction and dismay 
Some emigrants, that timely stole away, 

Got Mercury to intercede, 
To save at least a remnant of the breed. 

But Jupiter, on no condition, 

Would grant th' ambassador's petition. 

" I have no pity for the case 

a Of such a senseless, croaking race: 
" The king was good enough, I sent 'em first, 
" Be now their murmurs with a tyrant curst." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 67 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Were not these Frogs more 
infatuated than the Pigeons in the foregoing fable ? 

Respondent. — This, I think, must be allowed ; 
inasmuch as, while there appeared not more, or 
rather no cause, for discontent, they were not 
cajoled and tempted like the Pigeons, to think their 
present state could be mended. 

2. Ex. — But does not their folly appear much 
greater than that of the Pigeons for two farther 
reasons ? 

Res. — You mean, I suppose, because they not 
only supplicated for a change, from the mere 
humour of changing, where nothing interfered 
with their happiness ; but also, when the desired 
change was granted them, which had no way dis- 
turbed it after a moment's surprize, they still 
continued to murmur and petition for another 
king. 

3. Ex. — To give our fable a more general ap- 
plication, I would ask, on what occasions mankind 
seem most unreasonable in their dispositions and 
conduct ? 

Res. — They never, perhaps, shew themselves 
less influenced by reason, the noble prerogative 



68 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



they boast above frogs, and all the animal 
fraternity, than in groundless discontent and 
murmuring; and in their endeavours to alter 
their condition without any just cause for com- 
plaint. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 69 

, f ^ 



FABLE VIII. 

THE FOX AND THE STORK, 

'Tis said, (perhaps the thing was rumour,) 

That Reynard, in a waggish humour, 
One, at most games, who comes off winner, 
Invited Gran'am Stork to dinner. 
In the Stork's eye, it look'd but comical, 
That Reynard, much too economical, 
Had got no pudding, flesh, nor even fish, 

Tho', 'mong your Storks, a fav'rite dish. 
To see at table a low shallow platter, 
For a soup meagre, Reynard's only fare, 
Instead of a tureen, she well might stare ! 
But, soon enough, she understands the matter : 

For while she only wets her bill, 

Which, in a bason, or tureen, 
An admirable spoon had been, 
And only baulks her appetite's good will ; 

Her host, arch Reynard, every sup, 

Had lap'd his porridge fairly up. 
The Stork upon occasion could be sly ; 

And thinking, she had reason why, 

Requests the Fox's company. 

She begs to set before him 
A long-neck jar of glass, with fricasee ; 

Such, as if faint, would soon restore him. 



70 FABLES for the fire-side. 

The Fox, beholding all within, 
Felt his mouth water to begin, 

But knew not how — 
Then, with complacent brow, 
" This is my method, said the Stork ; 
" (For I want neither knife nor fork ;)" 
So thrusting down the jar, her beck, 
And after it a mile of neck, 
She help'd herself at pleasure ; 
And, to the Fox's thinking, above measure. 
For while he sat, a mere spectator, 
His time of dinner growing later, 
The Stork, not wishing to be beaten, 
By Reynard's treat, had fairly eaten 

Each morsel in the jar ; 
And saw herself, with Reynard, on a par. 
He, recollecting his own trick, 
No quarrel with the Stork could pick. 
His self-applause was growing coolish, 
Against his head his stomach grumbled : 
Poor Reynard, mortified and humbled, 
Sneak'd off; and looking rather foolish, 
" 'Tis true, he cries, I've lost my bacon ; 
a But he, who gives a joke, must learn to take one. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 71 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Are such jokes as this of the 
Fox allowable in the common intercourse of men 
with each other ? 

Respondent. — Having much more of the cha- 
racter of fun and waggery than that of wit or plea- 
sant humour, they are certainly beneath the stile of 
good company, and can be allowable' in no case, 
but from one wag to another, or betwixt a mounte- 
bank and his droll. 

2. Ex. — But it sometimes happens, that a wag 
plays off a specimen of low comic impertinence on 
a stranger, or some person of respectable character ; 
aud indeed the Stork, as of a different species of 
animal from the Fox, might be considered in the 
light of a stranger. Is it best, in this case, to 
return the wag's joke in his own coin, or to treat it 
with silent contempt ? 

Res. — Where so happy a thought, as that of the 
Stork, suggests itself to the person thus bantered, 
he might laudably avail himself of it, as the best 
corrective of impertinence ; and this seems the 
instruction pointed out in the fable. 

3. Ex, — But suppose no such happy return of 



■72 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



the joke to be thought of; would then serious chas- 
tisement be more applicable than silent contempt ? 

Res. — I am much inclined to think not : your 
irritable people, who resort to caning or kicking 
upon such occasions, shew how deeply they 
have felt a low joke, and infallibly draw the 
laugh of the world upon themselves ; and to 
revenge the impertinence of a single buffoon, fre- 
quently give handle for ridicule to a hundred 
wiser persons, than either the buffoon or them- 
selves. 

4. Ex. — But while I admit, that the example 
of the Stork's pleasantry might be followed, do 
you conceive, that I am justifying the lex talionis^ 
(the law of retaliation) an eye for an eye, and a 
tooth for a tooth ? 

Res. — I do not think you intend it; since we all 
know, whose authority set that law for ever at rest, 
as far as it could be applied to serious cases ; and 
no other ever entered into his contemplation. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 73 

FABLE IX. 

THE OAK AND THE REED. 

An Oak, one day, in conversation 
With a poor Reed, 
Laments his feeble frame and humble station. 

" Yes, a hard lot is thine indeed ! 

" A lean Tom-tit of lightest weight, 
" Or breeze, that curls the surface of the lake, 
" For those poor shoulders, an overwhelming freight; 

" Force thee to bend with so much meekness, 

a I cannot but deplore thy weakness. 
" While lo ! my lofty port, and sturdy make, 

" Defy the rudest tempest's shock, 
" And stand, unshaken, like a rock. 
" To thee, each breath of air, a boreas, blows ; 

" With which, while I behold thee reeling, 

" Storms are mere zephyrs to my feeling. 
Ci Pity ! thy race no safer dwelling knows 

u Than pools and swamps 'mid such exposure. 

" Could'st thou retire beneath my shade, 
4i How well protected, mighf st thou here repose, 
*• Secure within the snug enclosure, 

" By my depending branches made. 
u If I my frank opinion may declare, 
c< Dame Nature's dealing, in thy case, was hard I"— 



'" 



74 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



■en 



" Thanks to thy feeling and kind care," 
.Replies our gentle Reed ; 

" Of a good heart they are indeed 
" A creditable token ; 

" But I beseech thee to discard 
u This sympathy so tender. 
" Bending to every blast, J. keep unbroken, 

u Although my frame is weak and slender ; 

u 'Tis true, so stout is thy resistance, 
" That, hitherto, no storm, no whirlwind's force. 

" With all the might that arms their course, 

" Has found sufficient strength to bend 
" Thy sturdy back ; but let us wait the end."— 

These words were hardly spoken, 
When clouds th' horizon fair deform ; 
And soon there comes a furious storm. 

The Reed, as usual, bends unbroken ; 

While all its violence and shocks 

The Oak, with proud defiance, mocks. 

But, with redoubled force, at last 

Old Boreas blows him such a blast, 

That, while the Reed was stooping low, 
To 'scape th' increasing fury of his foe, 

He hears the lordly boaster tumble, 
And soon beholds his root, his trunk, his head, 

In plighi most piteous and humble, 
Stretch'd on the earth, and number'd with the dead] 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 75 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is it wise for persons but 
slenderly provided, and of small pretensions, to 
listen eagerly to offers of patronage from those, 
who boast confidently of their power and pros- 
perity ? 

.Respondent. — The fable appears intended to 
shew, that it is not. 

2. Ex. — But may not protection be worth 
accepting, while at least these boasters continue in 
prosperity ? 

Res.— Not without caution, and well weighing, 
whether a reverse of fortune in the patron may not 
draw down with him, in his fall, the person pro- 
tected. 

3. Ex. — Has the fabulist judged well in making 
the Reed express itself with such grateful acknow- 
ledgment of the feeling and kind love of the Oak ; 
since all the Oak had said might have been set 
down much more to the account of vanity than of 
compassion ? 

Res. — This was surely the proceeding of a 
candid and delicate mind, while doubting only, 
whether the protection kindly though ostentatiously 
offered, could have been given. 



76 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

4. Ex. — But; to turn our attention more 
directly to the confident boaster here pointed at, 
whence arises it, that any human creature can cal- 
culate on his power and prosperity so unwisely, as 
to believe, that nothing can diminish, or affect 
them? 

Res. — From his pride and vanity, which confine 
his whole thoughts to himself and his own present 
circumstances, and will not suffer him to contem- 
plate that mutability, to which all human things 
are subject. 

5. Ex. — To what end may we humbly conjec- 
ture th^t the Supreme Being has allowed this muta- 
bility to take place throughout the sublunary state 
of man ? 

Res. — What other end can we assign than that 
this life is a state of probation, and that these 
changes are intended, to minister occasion for the 
practice of some of our most important moral 
duties ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 77 

FABLE X. 

THE OLD BACHELOR AND HIS TWO MISTRESSES, 

A sober Bachelor, of certain age, 

But somewhat tow'rd the greybeard drawing. 

At length grown weary of see-sawing, 

Thought, he might prudently engage 
Th' affections of his heart, look out a wife ; 

And enter on the married life. 

In youth he hoarded up the pence ; 
Time made them pounds ; and pounds made com- 
petence. 

Too well determin'd now to falter, 

He takes the road to Hymen's altar : 

Yet far too wary he, to snap 

At every face, that set a cap. 

'Along those, who understood his meaning, 

And were tow'rd matrimony leaning, 

Two widows, flinging each a dart 
At they same moment, thought, they reach'd his 

heart. 
One still was green, alert, and shrill of pipe ; 

The other more than almost ripe ; 

But skilful, to retain by art 

Charms, that were ready to depart. 

These widows, full of fun and laughter. 



. 



78 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 

(You'd never guess, what they were after) 

As if to spruce their Bachelor for dinner, 

Their curling tongs, or tweezers each applies ; 
Both much intent upon the prize : 
Each hoping, she might be the winner. 
While this odd business was doing, 

And our old spark, seem'd both, or neither wooing; 

The elder dame pluck'd out each blacker hair ; 
But t'other, thought he best might spare 
Those mark'd by age, and turning grey : 
So pluck'd ; so twitch'd ; so manag'd they, 
To make her beau what each thought best, 

Till the good man, of Nature's boon bereft, 

Had not one solitary ringlet left. 
Soon as he understood the jest, 
" My belles, he cried, accept my thanks ; 

66 Tho', somewhat to my noddle's cost, 
" My hair, both black and grey, I've lost, 

u I hold myself a gainer by your pranks. 

" Married to either should I thus be teaz'd, 

" Till metamorphosed into what she pleas'd ; 

" Nor e'er allow'd to think, or act, or speak, 

" But in the character of Jerry Sneak : 
" So, ladies, on this hard condition, 

" The wedding ring suits not my disposition : 
" I'm still myself: I scorn to sham ; 

" And so, I'll e'en continue, as I am." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 79 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Whether of these two widows 
would you determine to have been the more un- 
reasonable for attempting so total a change in our 
mature Bachelor, as their different proceedings 
shews each, to have been desirous of effecting ? 

Respondent. — One, being represented as more 
nearly approaching his age than the other, not 
unnaturally expected, she should the more easily 
change him to her own humour : yet the other, 
probably founding her expectation of success on 
the superior influence of youthful charms, was as 
little inclined to despair as the former ; so that we 
know not how to pronounce one more reasonable 
than the other. 

2. Ex. — But the most important question is, 
whether both were not very unreasonable in expect- 
ing so entire a change in the character, habits, 
manners, and person, as the Bachelor reasonably 
concludes, would be attempted by either of these 
ladies, he might have chosen for a wife ? 

Res. — It were manifestly absurd to attempt, or 
expect so absolute a transformation in any human 
being ; and still more so, in one whose habits had 
been confirmed by length of time. 



80 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

3. Ex. — Our Bachelor being aware, that the 
future experiments projected would be equally 
unpleasant with that already undergone, can you 
hesitate in pronouncing upon his resolution of 
avoiding a connection with either ? 

Res. — It will at once be decided, he acted 
wisely. 

4. Ex. — So far, then, you close with the instruc- 
tion of the fable ; but does it inculcate a right 
lesson in the Bachelor's determination, never to 
enter the state of matrimony on account of this dis- 
appointment ? 

Res. — Surely it does not ; unless, the sex in 
general, maids, wives, and widows, be supposed as 
unreasonable as the two women in the fable, which 
the experience of most men happily contradicts. 

5. Ex. — But is there not a certain point, to 
which a lady may laudably attempt after marriage, 
if it be not previously practicable, some alteration 
in the character of a husband, and to assimilate 
his manners and humour somewhat to her own ? 

Res. — Yes, so far, as she is sure, the wiser and 
better part of the world will think him improved 
by the change she may wish to effect ; and pro- 
vided, it be undertaken with due respect and 
delicacy. 



fabl.es for the fire-side. 81 

FABLE XL 

THE WOMEN AND THE SECRET. 

I know a saucy Bard, who says, 
" Nothing more heavy than a secret weighs"— 
And adds, u unless, with some to share it, 
66 No woman ever far could hear it." 
But bid him tell you, ladies, when 
This burthen was more light for men ? 
A countryman, in humbler life, 
(A hum'rous wight he was, and married) 
Must needs make trial of his wife ; 
How far, by her, this burthen could be carried. 
One night, when lying at her side, 
" Ye pow'rs of midwif 'ry, he cried, 
" Help ! Help ! — Then turning to his dame, he said, 
u Thy husband is deliver'd of an egg." 

" An egg ?" — " Yes, yes, and just new-laid, 

u I feel it with my leg. 
u But bless thee, keep it secret, dear ; 
u Once I conjure thee, and again; 
" For should'st thou let it go, I fear, 
" Each gossip would nick-name me, hen ; 
" In short, thou must be mum." 
Altho' so wond'rous an affair 
Could not but make the woman stare. 



82 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

She promised to be dumb ; 
Nor, as her husband press'd it, was she loath, 

To bind her promise by an oath. 

But ah ! the binding prov'd not tight, 

And only lasted during night. 

Up rose the dame by break of day, 
And to a neighb'ring gossip's house she ran — 
u So strange a thing has happen'd ! but I pray, 

" Lest I get drubb'd by my good man, 
u Whose temper has a little of the crab, 
" A single syllable you'll never blab. 
u Hear now this most mysterious matter, 
" (The like ne'er happen'd in the world before!) 
— " My spouse has laid an egg, as big as four. 

" Be sure now, Gran'am, don't you chatter."— 

" Why, my good neighbour, cries the other, 

u Truly, I thought, you'd known me better ; 

" Believe me, as you would your mother, 
" I'll blab not half a word, nor e'en a letter. 

" So pry 'thee, let no scruples teaze ye, 
" Go home, and make thyself quite easy." 

She went ; but scarce had reach 'd the door, 
When Goody felt the secret boiling o'er. 

Her bonnet on, away she paces, 

And tells it only in ten places. 

But, as few tales, twice-told agree, 
The husband's egg was multiplied to three ; 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



Indeed^ what story ever lost in telling ? 
With the next gossip our's was swelling. 

She in a whisper roundly swore, 

The number was no less than four. 

But whispers now became quite needless ; 

For half the world had caught the rumour. 

Alike the thoughtful, and the heedless ; 

And as no dame was in the humour, 
To let the story pass without improvement. 

At ev'ry call, and nimble movement 

Of tongues, that babbled without ceasing, 

The number went on so increasing, 

From three alone at early day, 
(So eachbeliev'd, or feign'd, or blunder'd) 

That, by the evening's closing ray. 
The good man's egg amounted to a hundred. 

Note. — The story of this fable has been called low ; and not 
unjustly. But the weakness it chastises is general in all ranks 
of life ; common to both sexes, and of a very serious nature, 
The poignant vivacity with which La Fontaine has told the 
story, and his conduct of it, so true to Nature, would not allow 
the present fabulist to reject it, under the prime consideration of 
the moral importance of the subject. But he has taken care, 
in his paraphrastic imitation, to confine the scene and circum- 
stances to lower life, conformably to the nature of the story. 
The fable, however, as he found it (Lib. viii. 6.) is with the 
volume dedipated by its Author, to the Dauphin of France ; was 
probably taught him, with the rest, by Bossuet, his preceptor, 
and read by the most polished courtiers of Louis XIV., the 
patrons and admirers of La Fontaine, 



84 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is this difficulty of retention in 
the article of secrets more common in one sex than 
the other ? 

Respondent. — Although Fontaine's representa- 
tion might mislead us to think sd, the present 
fabulist, from his question in the fourth and fifth 
lines, appears not to adopt that opinion. 

2. Ex. — But, without further enquiry, whether 
of the two sexes is most liable to this weakness (since 
none is more common to both,) to what causes are 
we to attribute it ? 

Res. — Partly to the secret vanity of shewing 
what confidence has been placed in us, and partly 
to the natural pleasure of exciting surprize by the 
relation of something new or strange. 

3. Ex. — Why do you call the former of these 
two causes the secret vanity of shewing what con- 
fidence others have placed in us ? 

R ES# — Because we scarcely seem aware, how 
much we are prompted by it, to expose our own 
infirmity. 

4. Ex. — Will you have the goodness to explain 
this ? 

R E s. — Surely we cannot manifest a greater 
weakness, while seemingly insensible of it, than. to 
shew ourselves proud of a confidence reposed in 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 85 

us at the very instant we are betraying it, and 
proving, how little we have deserved it. 

5. Ex. — Does the second cause you have 
assigned, namely, the pleasure of communicating 
something new, or strange, make any excuse for 
the infirmity condemned in the fable ? 

Res. — No more than the pleasure we may have 
in committing any other fault : this in every case 
is an immoral, and would, if admitted, be a most 
dangerous plea. 

6. Ex. — Why do you think so ? 

Res. — Because the most heinous crimes are 
probably at the moment of commission not unac- 
companied by some transient pleasure, however 
horrid the remorse with which they may be 
followed. This plea is soon found too weak for 
the serious approval of a man's own conscience. 

7. Ex. — Has not this fable been thought by 
some persons rather indelicate and low ? 

Res. — I believe, it has. 

8. Ex. — Why then do you suppose it to have 
been admitted here ? 

Res. — Probably, because the author could find 
no other, in which this dangerous infirmity has 
been so happily exposed. 

9. Ex. — Since the present fabulist, with a con- 
sideration wanting in the original author, has 

H 



86 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

pointedly placed the scene and the actors in low 
life, are not the circumstances at least all perfectly 
ift nature ? 

Res. — That will hardly be denied. 

10. Ex. — Would it not then have been a proof 
rather of a squeamish fastidiousness than of good 
taste, to have rejected it ? 

Res. — The present fabulist must doubtless have 
thought so ; and have trusted, that, when the 
importance of the apologue, for the reasons above, 
is weighed, no candid or moral critic would wish it 
left out of his book. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 87 

FABLE XII. 

THE HOHNETS AND THE BEES. 

A honeycomb was found, on some occasion. 
The property of which the Hornets claim'd ; 

The Bees opposed this reclamation : 

Before Judge Wasp the process came. 

A day was fixed to have it tried ; 

But 'twas no easy matter to decide ; 

For all the witnesses agreed. 
They had observed, too narrowly, to doubt it, 
Some insects on the comb, and some about it. 

Possession fully bent to take ; 

A wing'd and buzzing breed, 
Of tann'd complexion, and of longish make. 
Now this description answers to the Bee ; 
Nor does it with the Hornet, less agree. 
This likeness strange of either race 
Posed my lord Judge, and puzzled much the case ; 

Still darker made by Counsel Spinner ; 

He and his learned brother Rover, 
Quite ready both for dinner, 
Advise the Judge, to let the cause stand over* 
But first, my lord, deliberate and wary, 
Issues a writ of certiorari. 
Tho' information was obtained ; 



88* CABLES- FOR. THE FIRE-SIDE. 

The cause at next assize remain'd> 

But where it was before : 
So 'twas proposed to have one hearing more. 

Spinner now hinting a refreshing fee, 
ic 'Tis full six months, exclaims a prudent Bee 7 

" This action has been still depending : 

a With your demurrers, consultations, 

" New trials, pleadings, replications, 

" I fear, 'twill never have an ending. 
u But during all this fruitless cost, and toiling,, 

" The honey-comb itself is spoiling. 
" To cut this mighty business short, 
" With the court's leave, I'll make a proposition ; 

" Which soon will bring you to decision. 

" Let the two parties, here in court, 
" Give each, a specimen of honey-making ; 

u Then let the Judge, and sage assessors, 

u Compare it with the comb in question ; 
" And say, which party were its right possessors," 

This task, of difficult digestion 
To the poor Hornets, sets them all a quaking ; 

And they decline the undertaking. 
The Bees, meanwhile unanimous, apply, 

66 'Tis needless, says the Judge, to try ; 
" Which party knows the craft, is clear as day. 

u And I pronounce without delay ; 
" These Hornets live by robbery and w r rong : 



TABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 89 

i6 Combs, cells, and honey to the Bees belong." — 
'Twere well, if half the causes, brought to hearing 5 
Were thus curtail'd by common sense, 
What toil were saved, and what expense, 
To make that plain, which needs no clearing ! 
But as the case, at present, stands, 
The learned ambiguities of law 
Thrive on your houses and your lands, 
And seldom to conclusion draw, 



r ? 



Till the full bottoms of the bar, 

No longer on your case at war, 
Have pocketed the matter in dispute. 
Ah ! then, you'll say, they may as well be mute ! 
And since they've gulp'd the oyster, need I tell, 
Their clients — they are welcome to the shell. 



90 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What characters among men 
are most nearly represented by the Hornets ? 

Respondent. — Those idle pretenders and im- 
postors, who steal the works and inventions of 
others, and live by labour and ingenuity not their 
t)wn ? 

2. Ex. — What are those, of which the Bees 
present an emblem ? 

Res.-*- Able, industrious, and skilful mecha- 
nicians ; ingenious authors j inventors in arts and 
sciences ; whose patents are invaded, works 
pirated, and discoveries boasted and pretended to 
by those, who have no part in their composition, 
or invention. 

3. Ex. — You have considered the piracy of the 
works of ingenious authors as one of the cases, to 
be brought under the censure of this fable ; but 
how would you define the literary pirate ? 

Res,— One, who without an author's consent, 
and while he, or his bookseller still claims the 
property of his works, either publishes an edition 
of it for his own benefit ; or, without the plea of 
reviewing or criticising, makes such large extracts, 
as anticipate the curiosity of the 'public for the 



FABLES FOR THE FIBE-SIDE. 91 

original, and thus greatly diminish, if not prevent 
the sale. 

4. Ex. — How do you distinguish translators 
and imitators from literary pirates ? 

Res. — The provinces both of translators and 
imitators, where their talents equal their preten- 
sions, have ever, at the tribunal of criticism, been 
deemed highly honourable and ingenious. Tran- 
slators enable an author of merit, possessing no 
language but his own, to speak many others, and 
thus at once extend the benefit and fame of his 
works. Imitators transmitting, without servility, 
the thoughts of original writers into their own com- 
positions, and freely mingling new and congenial 
ideas, are generally thought to justify no incon- 
siderable claims to literary reputation. 

5. Ex. — Though the direct moral of the fable 
is expressed in the Judge's decision of right between 
the Hornets and Bees, is not some useful intimation 
intended in the advice and management of the two 
pleaders in the apologue ? 

Res. — Some reflection is plainly levelled at a 
disposition in the gentlemen of the bar to am- 
biguities and delays. 

6. Ex. — What is suggested by the concluding 
line of the fable ? 

Res. — That it sometimes happens in long con- 



92 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

tention about property at the bar, that the matter in 
dispute is swallowed up by the expences of the 
law. 

7. Ex. — To what should wise and well-inten- 
tioned persons resort for the termination of disputes 
concerning property, previously to any recurrence 
to the law ? 

Res. — To the arbitration of the best and wisest 
among the friends of each party ; this, betwixt the 
wise and well-intentioned at least, might prevent 
many a ruinous law-suit 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 93 

FABLE XIII. 

THE WOLF AND THE MASTIFF. 

The Dogs had kept a stricter guard ; 

Or else the times were grown so hard. 
That a poor Wolf was shrunk to skin and bone. 

Prowling at large he met, one day, 
A jolly Mastiff, who had lost his way ; 

Sleek, in good case, and all alone. 
The Wolf had certainly not faiPd t' attack him, 
Since each plump quarter had supplied a dinner, 
But that our Mastiff needed none to back him, 
While t'other doubted, which might prove the 

winner. 
He thought it therefore best, in civil tone, 

To enter into conversation : 
And first observ'd with compliments high flown : 
Ci Your embonpoint, Sir, wins my admiration." — 
u Would you become as sleek," the Dog replies, 

u The thing's, entirely in your pow'r : 

* 4 Quit those vile woods, where all your race, 

" Hungry, nay, starv'd, in wretched case, 
*< Look, as if bent each other to devour. 

" No day, e'er certain of a meal, 
u Yon bolt, at daggers drawn, the scraps you 
steal. 



94 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

u Would you fare better, follow me, 
" And soon the difference you'll see." — 
" But, in this change of situation, 
u Fd wish, replies the Wolf, some intimation, 

" As touching my employment." 
" Your work ! says Hector, I can soon run o'er : 
u Night watch, and driving mumpers from the 
door ; 
" The rest is all enjoyment. x 

" But don't forget, for time will run the faster, 
u With tricks and fawning ways to please your 
master, 
" And the good folks about his house. 
" For by such meanjs you'll mend your living ; 
" By handfuls find 'em freely giving 
" Nice bones, cheese parings, scraps of souce, 

" Fat broth, and with these sav'ry messes, 
" Loading their gentle Wolf with kind caresses." 
Soon as his ear had caught all this, 
He figur'd to himself such bliss, 
He wept, o'erwhelm'd with joy : 
But where is happiness without alloy ? 
As they were trotting to the mansion hall, 

The Wolf observ'd a sort of speck, 
With hah rubfrd off, upon the mastiff's neck. 
u Friend Hector ! hast thou told me all I 
" Don't this look rather queer ; 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 95 

u This soreness just below your ear ?" — 
" Mere nothing !" — " But you must explain." — 

" Why 5 'tis a little rub, you see, 

u An't please your curiosity, 

u Done by the collar of my chain." — 
" Your chain ? — what then you are not free ? 
* ; You run not where you please, like me ?" — 

" Not always ; and what signifies it ?" — 

" Here, cries the Wolf, we disagree ; 

44 I value freedom ; you don't prize it. 
* w Give me my liberty : take you your treats, 

" Your bones, your broth, your sav'ry meats : 
44 Freedom's too great a price for any treasure ; 
" Gold may be bought too dear : 
44 So, friend ! I quit you here : 
« To roam at liberty, is all my pleasure. 
" I hold your kind proposals not expedient : 
" Farewell ; I'm off; so Sir, your most obedient." 



96 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. — Examiner. — Which state is the more 
desirable ; the social dependence of the Dog, or the 
wild independence of the Wolf? 

Respondent. — If a squalid and almost constant 
state of want, though not without occasional abun- 
dance, but that generally acquired by violence or 
injustice, be the proper representation of the Wolf's 
natural independence and liberty, while the Dog's 
plenty, ease and happiness are to be regarded as 
the fruits of his submission to some restraint upon 
his natural liberty, there can surely be little hesita- 
tion in preferring the dependent state of the Dog. 

2. Ex. — Does not iEsop, (probably the original 
author of this fable) seem to lean to the contrary 
conclusion ? But how do you account for it ? 

Res. — There appears little reason to doubt his 
conclusion such : iEsop having passed his life in 
the unnatural condition of slavery, and having in 
many instances, it is likely, witnessed great evil in 
it among others, though he might not have expe- 
rienced it in his own person, his judgment on this 
subject was probably much warped, and might 
lead him to think, that liberty of any kind was 
preferable to any kind of dependence. 



TABLES FOR THE FIRE-STDE. 97 

3. Ex. — But I would ask, whether, unless in 
such a miserable state of nature as that of the 
Wolf, absolute independence can exist ? 

Res. — It may be well doubted. 

4. Ex. — At least ; is not the supposition incom- 
patible with the notion of civil society ? 

Res. — Perhaps, it is. 

5. Ex. — I will propose a series of questions 
which may lead to the full solution of this case : 
that persons, however, in the lower conditions of 
civil society are, and must be dependent, will at 
once be granted. But are not even men the most 
highly elevated, whether by rank, power, or wealth, 
dependent like others ? 

Res. — It may be so; but by our questions rela- 
tive to each of these conditions, you may lead us 
to a more decisive conclusion. 

6. Ex. — First then, what rs rank or precedence 
in civil society, but a species of superiority, which 
can only exist by the courtesy of others ? 

Res. — It seems justly so described: where all 
are resolved and able to go the same pace at 
the same time, it is plain, that none either precede 
or follow. But where age, wisdom, or virtue/are 
made the ground of pretensions to precedence, it 
will rarely be refused ; and hence springs that 
allowance and favour among mankind, which we 



98 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

call courtesy , and on which rank absolutely 
depends. 

7. Ex. — But cannot the sovereign grant rank to 
whomsoever he pleases ? 

Res. — He can grant a title, which may demand 
courtesy ; but whether this be paid, or not, depends 
on the will of his subjects. 

8. Ex. — But cannot he compel the payment of it ? 
Res. — He might, with great inconvenience, do so 

in a few instances, and on some particular occa- 
sions ; but it would be impossible to persist in any 
such compulsion by laws, or punishments, without 
the consent and good will of the subject. This 
however, it may be observed, is a very different case 
from the interference of law and punishment with 
respect to positive actions whence real evil and 
hurt arise to society : here compulsion must take 
place. 

9 . Ex . — Is not rank then dependent upon others, 
for that which constitutes its existence, viz. : the 
payment of courtesy ? 

Res. — I confess it. 

10. Ex. — To proceed now to the consideration 
of civil power : suppose, the power of a monarch ; 
of a minister of state, or of the leader of an army ; 
what, in the first place, constitutes the power of a 
king ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



Res. — The will of the people to obey him : in 
the cases of conquest, or tyranny, the will of a 
military force. 

11. Ex . — What that of a minister of state ? 
Res. — The will of the sovereign. 

12. Ex. — What that of the leader of an army ? 
Res. — The will of that army, to follow him and 

to fight under his command. 

13. Ex. — May we not now conclude, that 
power in the three cases of persons supposed to 
possess the greatest share of it in civil society, is 
dependent on the will of others ? 

Res. — It is undeniable; and the same maybe 
equally concluded of all other cases of civil power. 

14. Ex. — Bat this power being a relative thing 
as existing only in society, should it not. be dis- 
tinguished from personal power, or that of which 
every person partakes in some degree by the 
gift of Nature ; for instance, bodily strength and 
the faculties of the understanding ? 

Res. — Yes : this distinction is obvious, and the 
more so, as these natural or personal powers may 
be stiled to a certain degree independent. 

15. Ex. — Yet are not the most important and 
numerous objects, on which they act, or can be 
made useful, foreign to his own person and depen- 
dent upon others ? 



100 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — Yes ; doubtless they are, when employed 
in society. 

16. Ex. — And is it then not better, and more 
honourable for men to enter in civil society, in order 
to render these powers naturally and extensively 
useful ? 

Res. — Surely it is ; since, unless they do so, 
their independence, in the possession of these 
powers, would be savage, and of very limited use, 
like that of the Wolf in the fable. 

17. Ex. — Now if rank and power in civil 
society cannot be independent, tell me, whether 
zoealth can be so ? 

Res. — Quite as little as the other two. 

18. Ex. — How do you prove this ? 

Res. — Is it not evident to the slightest reflection 
that, while men are acquiring wealth, they are 
continually and necessarily dependent on others 
for those labours, arts, and sciences, which must be 
in some way or other exercised, as the means of 
acquiring it ? 

19. Ex. — But suppose a certain quantity of 
wealth acquired, and that, entirely satisfied with it, 
we aim at no farther acquisition ; are we then 
independent ? 

Res. — No more than before. 

20. Ex.— Say why? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 101 



Res. — Because a man can neither eat, nor drink 
his gold; it cannot in itself, either clothe him, 
wait upon his person, or exercise his commissions. 
He must now exchange his wealth for these satis- 
factions, and will find himself dependent on the 
farmer, the butcher, the cook, and many others, for 
his table ; on the vinter, &c. for his wine ; on the 
spinner, the weaver, and the draper, &c. for his 
clothes. He must hire service, and where he can, 
ability, intelligence, and good will with it ; on all 
which he will find much of his comfort and happi- 
ness dependent. 

21 . Ex . — What now is the just conclusion from 
all the foregoing considerations ? 

Res. — That man in civil society, whatever be 
his situation, is, and must be a dependent crea- 
ture ; and, that, since human existence in a wild 
state of nature is and must be savage, squalid, and 
miserable, Providence undoubtedly designed, that 
we should unite in civil states and communities, 
and become mutually dependent upon, and helpful 
to one another. 

22. Ex. — In our investigation of the proper 
moral instruction to be derived from this fable, 
might we not without caution, have been misled 
by the Wolf 's disdain of the Dog's condition, and 
preference of his own, to dangerous conclusions in 



102 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

comparing the wildness and apparent gaiety, 
liberty and independence of a state of nature, with 
the comfort, convenience and happiness only to be 
found, and secured in civil society ? 

Res. — Too much caution could not be used, to 
prevent a wrong judgment on this important 
apologue, nor will less have been necessary with 
respect to some others. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 103 



FABLE XIV. 

THE CAT AND THE RATS. 

Grimalkin made great havock 'mong the Rats : 
Scarce was a solitary straggler seen ; 

Such was their mortal dread of Cats ! 

For countless had their funerals been. 
Most, that remained, close quarters kept at home; 

And each to short allowance come, 
Starv'd, o'er his miserable morsel, groans. 
Grimalkin, their raw-head and bloody bones, 

Stalks in each scar'd imagination ; 

Sole subject of their conversation. 
But he, since bus'ness was grown slack, 
They heard, one ev'ning was departing, 

On an engagement of sweet-hearting ; 
And not, before next morning, to come back. 

Mean time, the Rats in council met 
For secret consultation, 

On the sad posture of affairs. 

He, who their president was set, 
A Rat of riper age, and observation, 
His sentiment declares. 

Their case admitting no delay, 
His sage opinion, in three words to tell, 
Was — " They must cunningly devise a way 



104 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

" Round the Cat's neck to fix a bell. 

" Suppose him then on war to think, 
€C And on their confines now encroaching, 
" Soon as the bell announced the foe approaching, 
" They to their holes, in safety each might slink." 

With this resource th' assembly closed, 
Since for a better all were fairly posed 5 
But on one point their wits are forced to dwell ; 

The means of hanging that same bell . 

u Let those that like the problem, chew it, 

" I were a fool, says one, to do it." 

" Tho' all my courage will allow, 

u Another cries, I don't know how." 

" A third wants strength, and he don't chuse it," 

In short, they, one and all, refuse it. 
Thus among men, in seasons of alarm, 
You'll see the council-board with sages swarm ; 
But when their plans are ripe for execution, 

Not one can summon resolution. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 105 



QUESTIONS. &c. 

1. Examiner. — Must we understand this fable 
as a direct reflection on the counsellors of kings and 
states ? 

Respondent. — Not directly, I suppose ; for it 
were unreasonable, in a thousand cases, to expect 
the members of a council, to be the fittest persons 
to execute their own decrees. 

2. Ex. — On what do you ground this opinion ? 
Res. — On the common principle, that theory 

and practice are widely differeat provinces ; and 
that counsellors of state may wisely plan that, 
which others will more ably and properly execute. 

§. Ex. — At what then is the fable levelled ? 

Res. — Much more fitly at any society or com- 
pany, where all the members are nearly on an equal 
foot and assailed by some common enemy, or adverse 
circumstance, which every one is personally 
interested to repel, and all equally concerned 
in devising the most efFetual means. 

4. Ex. — In such a society, or company then, 
whose objects of combination you undoubtedly 
suppose few and limited, may all its members be 
expected, to shew themselves able and ready, 
though not equally perhaps so, to execute what 
they advise ? 



106 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — Yes ; all, not unreasonably ; but certainly 
a majority at least. 

5. Ex. — What now is the main scope of our 
apologue ? 

Res. — To shew how much readier men in 
general are, to give good advice than to practice 
it. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 107 

FABLE XV. 

SIMON1DES PRESERVED BY THE GODS. 

A man of rhyme,* well known in France, 
(To find the place would lead me a sad dance) 

But^ somewhere, says : 
6< Three objects claim a Poet's highest praise. 

a Above, the Gods, as all must know ; 

" Our Prince, our Mistress ; here below." 

Who will deny the maxim's good, 

Where'er 'tis rightly understood 2 
The Prince, who merits praise, will thank you, 

The Belle among her fav'rites rank you ; 

But from my fable you will learn, 
The Gods are they who make the best return, 

Simonides once undertook 
An ode upon some Pugilist of Greece ; 

The thing was in the way of trade, 
As modern authors bargain for a book, 
The sheets, or pages at so much a-piece ; 
Here 'twas each line, or stanza to be paid. 

Pen, ink, and paper were before him, 

The Muse of course invok'd ; 

* Malherbe. 



108 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

But ere the Poet thrice his chin had strok'd, 
The subject seem'd to bore him. 

Mere naked facts were soon related ; 

And they not such, as would be highly rated 

The Boxer's parentage was low ; 

A pedlar leaves no honours to inherit ; 

And bruising was our hero's only merit. 

As a gold ring cannot be made of wood, 

The Poet did the best he cou'd ; 
Then sought for some allusion, or example, 

And one soon offer'd full and ample : 

Those fam'd twin boxers, known of old, 

And high among the stars enroll'd, 
Had dealt in combats, worthy to be told. 
Describing circumstance, and time and place. 

Here the bard flourish'd with a grace^ 
Our Boxer, taking measure of the song, 
Finds the warm praises of the brother Gods, 
Beyond his own o'erflowing at such odds, 

That full two thirds to them belong. 

A talent was the Poet's price, 

And had been promised by the fighter ; 

Who paid him, by adjustment nice, 

One third ; confessing it was lighter 
Than the whole sum expected by the other : 

Then added with sarcastic jest, 

" I must refer you, for the rest, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 109 

" To your friends, Castor, and his brother : 

H Safe credit may to them be giv'n ; 
" So rest contented with your wealth in Heav'n— 

u Mean time at supper, if you'll meet, 
" A jovial party at my house to night, 

" I'll promise you a treat. 

w There'll be my uncle, aunt, and cousin, 

" (I think, you know 'em all by sight) 

u With some good friends ; about a dozen ; 

u And, take my word, no lack of fun ; 

" Simonides, you must make one." 

He promised to be there. 

Aware, that, if he kept away, 

He might not only miss his pay, 
But the respect the company might show him, 

And compliments upon his poem. 

All met at table in high glee : 

Enough, be sure, of eating, drinking ; 

Abundant mirth, and little thinking ; 
When lo ! the porter enters suddenly — 

" Two strangers at the door demand the Poet ; 

" I come in haste, to let him know it." 
He quits the room : the strangers none could guess ; 
They tried ; but no one wagg'd a jaw the less. 

Who should th' astonish'd Poet meet, 
But the twin brothers, waiting in the street ! 
" We come, they cry, to thank you for your lays ; 



110 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

" And, as a proof we value much your praise, 

" We warn you, ere we reckon five, 
" To quit these premises, while yet alive. 

" Affection solely prompts our call ; 

u For lo ! this house is doom'd to fall." 
No sooner the prediction pass'd their lips, 

Than from its base a column slips : 

The ceiling left without its stay, 

I need not say, how soon, gave way. 
This in an instant overset the table ; 
Plates, dishes, glasses, all in fragments lay ; 
Butler and lacqueys sprawling on the floor. 

Knoc^'d down, or stunn'd, no soul was able, 

Wfyile walls remain'd, to grope his way 
To thk next passage, and still less, the door. 

The worst now hear : the Gods resolv'd, 
To crown the vengeance to their Poet due. 
The Boxer and his guests were all involv'd, 
Met, each, some mischief, that he long might rue. 

The boxer's leg a falling beam 
Had fractur'd ; and the rest all scream ; 

One " that his nose is beat awry .;" 

Another, " he has lost an eye ;" 

A third, " that he is lame." 
The matter soon was trumpetted by Fame : 
All said, that miracles not yet had ceased : 

The Poet's glory was increas'd : 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. Ill 

The Boxer's conscience, sorely troubled, 
Ne'er rested, till the Poet's fees were doubled. 
Conviction to his mind too late was given, 
" That the whole tribe were favorites of Heaven/' 

A Poet's wish my story ends : 
" Olympus and Parnassus, long be friends !" 



112 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Did not the pugilist, who 
grudged, that the Gods should receive praise at 
his expence, deserve punishment ? 

Respondent. — It cannot be denied. 

2. Ex. — But why do you think so ? 

Res. — Because man, who lives and moves and 
holds the whole of his being at the will of his 
Creator, cannot refuse him adoration and praise 
without irreverence and ingratitude, and con- 
sequently merits his displeasure. 

3. Ex. — But even this does not seem the whole 
of the pugilist's impiety : for what are we to infer 
from his irpnical sarcasm, where he says of the 
Gods — 

*• Safe credit may to them be giv'n ; 

" So rest contented with your wealth in Heav'n ?" 

ft ES . — Since irony leads us always to understand 
the contrary to, what is said, we may here infer the 
pugilist's doubts, whether the Gods would reward 
those, who sing their praises, and repose a pious 
trust in their superintendance and justice. 

4. Ex. — Does not the character of a pugilist 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 113 

seem more truly rendered by this want of piety 
toward the Gods ? 

Res. — This feature is by no means unnatural. 

5. Ex. — Would the same sentiments be much 
out of place, if attributed to the boxers by profes- 
sion in our own days ? 

Res. — It may well be questioned, whether they 
be not applicable. 

6. Ex. — Is it not unbecoming in persons, who 
rank as gentlemen, to encourage and patronize 
these brutal combatants ? 

Res. — It must surely be thought unworthy of 
them. 

7. Ex. — By what motive can we suppose them 
to be actuated ? 

Res. — Too much probably by something like a 
savage gratification they find in it. 

8. Ex. — But have you not heard a patriotic 
motive sometimes assigned for this patronage ? 

Res. — Yes ; that the courage of our common 
people, from their being accustomed to witness 
these bloody combats, is fostered, and kept from 
degenerating. 

9. Ex. — Does this opinion seem rationally 
founded ? 

Res. — There appears much reason at least^ to , 
doubt the necessity of such a kind of encourage- ? 



114 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

ment; since the French, Germans, and many 
other nations, who take no particular delight in 
these spectacles, have invariably maintained their 
character for courage. 

10. Ex. — Have the refinements of a lettered 
and polite education in our naval and military 
officers, our admirals and generals, had the effect 
of lessening their courage ? 

Res. — Impossible ; since there are no braver 
men in the world : but, with a few disgraceful 
exceptions, it is not supposed those distinguished 
characters, those noble defenders of their country, 
ever condescend to witness or countenance these 
inhuman combats. 

11. Ex. — Whence then in persons, who hold 
the name and rank of gentlemen, can this vague 
opinion of patriotism, not to mention the delight 
which they take in these combats, have arisen ? 

Res. — Too probably from a neglected education, 
and the want of that taste and refinement of 
manners and sense of decorum, the ordinary 
consequences of such neglect. 

12. Ex. — What are the natural effects of this 
practice on the combatants themselves ? 

Res. — A tendency to brutalize their manners ; 
to render them regardless of the order of society, 
and inclined on every little injury, real or imagined, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 115 



to revenge themselves, and take justice, as they 
perhaps may call it, out of the hands of the 
magistrate into their own. 

13. Ex. — What are its natural effects on the 
people as spectators ? 

Res. — To render them disorderly, unfeeling^ 
qnd ferocious. 



116 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE XVI. 



THE HUSBANDMAN AND STAG. 

That masters, whatsoe'er their occupation, 
For close inspection often find occasion : 

Our ancient fabulist shall tell. 

The hounds were opening in full cry, 

Close by a thicket's side ; 

Where an old Stag was used to hide. 

He thought his enemies full nigh ; % 

And, to elude each rav'nous jaw, 
Sought an ox-stall, and slipp'd beneath the straw. 
" What, cries a wary Ox, that saw him hiding, 

" What seek'st thou here but certain death ? 
u For thee, near man, there is no safe abiding : 

" Fly, or contented yield thy breath." — 

" We brutes, at least so nearly kin," 

Replies the Stag, " should spare each other. 

w You see the sad distress I'm in ; 

" I trust, you'll not betray a brother. — 
" Full well I know, that ven'son-eater, man, 

" Will work my ruin, if he can. 

u But when these howling fiends depart, 

u And fairly lose the scent, I'll start." 

Snug, in his hiding-place, he lay : 

An hour, or two, had pass'd away ; 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-STDE. 117 

The Herdsman, as his time directs, 
Visits the stall ; just eyes his care ; 
Flings 'em their corn ; departs ; nor once suspects 
A creature, save his Oxen, there. 
The labo'rers about the farm 
Pass, and repass the stall : 
The Bailiff peeps in turn ; perceives no harm ; 
In short, our Stag escapes the sight of all. 
Kejoiced, that matters went so well, 
His heart its feelings longs to tell : — 
" To each kind Ox my thanks I give ; 
" Thro' whose benevolence I live." — 
" Yes, cries an old one, of the horned breed, 

" So far 'tis well ; but still take heed. 
u One still may come, who has a hundred eyes ; 
" One, who alas ! too fearless stranger ! 
" May yet thy confidence surprise, 
u And prove thee yet, not fairly out of danger." 
When one prognosticates disaster, 
It often seems to come the faster. 
No sooner had our elder finished 
A speech, which somewhat had diminished 

The satisfaction of his guest, 
Than at the stall, behold ! the master ! 
A Husbandman with care oppress'd, 
Looking all round him with chagrin. 
He cries : " These Oxen look so thin ! 



118 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

" That, sure, I've reason to suspect 
u My servants guilty of neglect. 
*f This has no hay ; that wants his corn ; 
u And dirty cobwebs hide another's horn. 

" And what conclusion must I draw, 
" This heap close by, to see 'em wanting straw ? 
u Masters of due economy observant, 
'"' Must sometimes condescend to act the servant. 

" At least I'm sure, 'twill break no law, 
" To throw my animals a little straw." 
A fork snatch'd up, some straw he takes : 
" Hey-day ! what's here beneath, that quakes : 
" A pair of branching horns perk out ! 
" A Stag ! sure not ! — my eyes I doubt. 

" 'Tis so : a noble brute by Jove ! 
u Ho ! Tom ! Ned ! Will ! bring here my gun ; 
u I'll lay him low : — See there his business done I 
" Such easy sport as this I love : 
" It was indeed no pleasant matter, 
" To find my Oxen grown no fatter : 
" But I'll forget it, now at least; 
« And tell the story at a ven'son feast." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 119 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Although nothing is so com- 
mon as the neglect of duty in servants, and other 
persons commissioned in matters of trust, would it 
be wise in any man to dismiss all confidence, and 
to take his whole business upon his own shoulders ? 

Respondent. — Since, in a state of civil society, 
no man can do every thing for himself, and some 
sort of substitution is necessary in a thousand 
articles, even in the most private station, it would 
be very unwise, to repose no confidence in others. 

2. Ex. — But since you allow, it will be often 
abused, can he possibly be too cautious, in whom 
he reposes it ? 

Res. — Without doubt, every wise man, who 
has experienced this abuse, ought to accustom 
himself, more and more, to examine well the cha- 
racters, pretensions and principles of those he 
intends to employ. But since perfection belongs 
not to man, even caution itself must have its 
limits. 

3. Ex. — But would you justify a man, who, 
having a large and extensive property, gives the 
superintendence of it to some cunning, active, self- 
interested and suspicious character, of whom his 



120 FABLES FOR THE FlRE-SIDE. 

principal has nothing better to say, than, that 
€C although he cheats me, he will suffer no one else 
to do it ?" 

Res. — No ; this would be the confidence of 
neither a wise, nor a good man ; but the indolence 
of a careless one, and of lax principles, himself. 
A christian moralist could not acquit him of the 
guilt of partaking of other mens' sins ; for such 
indolence encourages malversation. 

i. Ex. — You judge rightly of this case; but as 
a cautious, wise and good man will, after all his 
care, find himself frequently mistaken in the cha- 
racter of his servants and substitutes, what is he to 
do then ? 

Res. — Plainly, to dismiss those whom he has 
found unworthy of his confidence, and look out for 
better. But, in the mean time, where the effects 
of idleness, or neglect in the former, have not been 
such as to be punishable by the laws, to bear them 
with patience among the necessary evils of life. 

5. Ex. — Has not the Husbandman in the fable 
a merit even beyond that of patience ? 

Res. — Yes, that of good humour, and making 
the best of a bad matter. 

6. Ex. — But why, for our completer instruc- 
tion, are we not told, that he dismissed his careless 
servants ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 121 

Res. — Partly, because his character of great 
circumspection leaves us fairly to suppose the dis- 
missal ; and partly perhaps because the main drift 
of the fable turns upon the conduct of the Stag. 

7. Ex. — What then is the lesson taught us by 
his conduct ? 

Res. — That what appears the best measure, to 
which we may happen to resort under any sudden 
danger or calamity, may fail of security ; but that 
when we have recurred to what we thought the best, 
or perhaps our only resource in the exigency, we may 
submit to the consequences without self-reproach* 

8. Ex. — But when the Ox had acquainted the 
Stag, he had reason to believe him not safe, should 
he not instantly have sprung from his covert ? 

Res. — He had resolved to do so, as soon as he 
supposed the hounds at a distance ; but to have 
started sooner would have been to quit an uncertain 
good for a certain evil, asy doubtless, flight* yet 
appeared to him. 



122 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE XVIL 

THE TWO MULES. 

Two Mules were footing the same road ; 
Cut carrying each a different sort of load. 
One jogg'd on, like your common hacks, 
With barley to the mill. 

A Mule of office, t'other bore 
Part of the nation's load, the income tax, 

^ With prouder step and free good- will, 
Upon thai score. 

Jingling his bells, as on he went, 
He pass'd our humble carrier with a frown ; 

Hardly deigning to look down. 
When lo ! a gang of thieves on treasure bent, 

His bridle seize, and stop him short. 

They feel his kicks, and hear him snort : 

Resistance vain ! a pistol's shot 
Levels our Mule of office with the spot. 

" Is this the fruit of honour and high place !" 

He groans out, wailing his hard lot : 

" How different that poor drudge's case ! 
" Safe, unregarded, goes the lubber by ; 

" While thus, methinks, I hear him cry : 

" Ah ! friend, full oft a place at court 

u Proves naught but fortune's cruel sport : 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 123 

" With me, thou might's t have 'scap'd these woes, 

say I, 
" Had'st thou been drudging for the mill — good 

bye !" 



124 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What are the most prominent 
marks of that vanity and weakness, which men so 
often discover upon advancement to posts of 
honour, or high office ? 

Respondent. — Their vanity appears in the 
supercilious airs, with which they are apt to insult 
their less fortunate equals : their weakness, in the 
confidence, which they place in the instability of 
prosperous circumstances, and adventitious dis- 
tinctions. 

2. Ex. — Why are they less able than persons 
of moderation and sobriety of spirit, to bear up 
against the assaults of adversity, or of sudden 
calamity ? 

Res. —Their confidence and vanity naturally 
prevent foresight ; and the want of foresight pre- 
vents due preparation of mind, to endure, with 
firmness or patience, the changes of fortune. 

3. Ex. — Had not the late prosperity of the 
Mule so filled him with pride and vanity, was 
there not one subject of consolation, to which he 
might have resorted in his last hour ? 

Res. — Yes, a very fair one, in reflecting, that 
his calamity had not been occasioned by any 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 125 

malversation or abuse of his office ; but solely by 
the lawless violence of others. 

4. Ex. — Though the vanity and confidence of 
the mule in office had ill prepared him for the fatal 
end he met with, what are we to think of the 
reflections it drew from his companion ? 

Res. — That they bear strong marks of unge- 
nerous insult and an unforgiving spirit. - 

5. Ex. — But did not the haughty disdain, which 
he had experienced from the other in his pro- 
sperity, seem to justify them ? 

Res. — Certainly not. The misfortunes of an 
enemy have just claim to our compassion ; and 
still more those of one, whom we could regard in 
no worse light than a proud, unsocial neighbour. 



126 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

FABLE XVIII. 

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB. 

In this bad world, whatever fails, 

The law of strongest oft prevails. 

At the clear current of a spring, 

A Lamb had stopp'd to quench his thirst. 

It matters little, who came first ; 
But hunger and adventures chanced to bring 
A Wolf, before his breakfast, to the spot. 

" Somewhat too bold, there ! art thou not," 

In wrath the Wolf exclaims, 

u To mud the water which I drink ? 
u Thy rashness, sirrah, smart correction claims." — • 
" Small cause to move your honour's wrath, I 
think"— 
Replies the Lamb : 
" Would you but please t' observe, Sir, where I am, 

u Full twenty yards below you ; 

a I could not mud the spring for you, 

" As common sense must shew you."— - 
u I tell you, that you do ;" 
Returns the cruel beast : 
Ci But this, I hope, you'll not deny at least? 

u That, just about a year ago, 
" 'Twas you, that scandalized me so." — 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 127 

" An't please your worship, as a lie I scorn, 
u Long since, believe me, I was bora ; 
u And still am suckled by my mother." 
" Hoh ! then it was your brother ;" — 
u I have none," — »" Well then, one of your odd 

folks at home, 
" You, or your shepherd, or the dogs around ye, 
" Always at war with me, confound ye ; 
" Deny it if you can. So come, 
" On you, the first, I lay my thumb ; 
u A culprit for high treason." 

With that, defying justice, law, and reason, 
The Lamb he seizes, struck quite dumb ; 
Then drags his victim from the water : 
To the next wood, as soon as come, 

Proceeds the ruthless ruffian to the slaughter, 



128 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — By what was the Wolf's 
deliberate cruelty greatly aggravated ? 

Respondent. — By false accusation and in- 
sult. 

2. Ex.- — But was there no other aggrava- 
tion ? 

Res. — Yes ; not only the falsehood and impu- 
dence of his first accusation ; but the impossibility 
of its being true. 

3. Ex. — Are we to suppose, that among the 
sons of men, any are to be found capable of such 
enormity ? 

Res. — We are unwilling to believe it ; but the 
fabulist undoubtedly supposed it, or his apologue 
would be without meaning. 

4. Ex. — But were we actually sitting in judge- 
ment on such a case, ought we not to enquire, 
whether, though no circumstance appears which 
could absolve the culprit, there were any, w hich 
might at least be urged in extenuation of his 
crime ? 

Res. — Yes : the Wolf, it is said, was impelled 
to the commission of it by the violence of 
hunger. 



• 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 129 

5. Ex. — But do you mean this plea should 
entitle him to pardon ? 

Res. — By no means ; but, in some small degree, 
lessen his punishment. 

6. Ex. — But should the necessitous hunger of an 
unsocial vagabond, living like the Wolf, by vio- 
lence and robbery, form as strong a plea for the 
diminution of punishment, as that of an orderly 
citizen, who, reduced to famine at some fatal 
moment of inevitable penury, should commit a 
like crime with the Wolf's in the fable ? 

Res.— Necessity is said to have no law; and 
suppose the maxim true, yet the necessity of a 
creature, who will live out of all order of civil 
society, nor in any circumstance pay obedience to 
law, has, under commission of the same crime, 
by many degrees a weaker plea for the diminution 
of punishment. 









130 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE XIX. 

THE HEIFER, THE GOAT AND THE SHEEP, IN 
PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LION. 

A Heifer, Goat, and sister Sheep thought good, 

To enter into league 
With a proud Lion in their neighbourhood. 

'Twas no political intrigue : 
They meant fair partnership in loss or gains. 

Lo ! first the Goat a prize obtains : 

Caught in his toils' a bouncing Deer, 
He bade th€ partners of the firm draw near. 

The Lion reck'ning on his paw, 

" We're four ; yes, four, I see ; he cries, 

" Met here to share the prize." 
He makes four parcels, as requir'd the law,* 

Of equal size. 
In quality of prince with royal air, 

He seizes the first share. 
" All, of your sov'reign's right aware, 

" No doubt, this first concede, ' 

" The second, here, is mine by law ; 

" The law, you know, of stronger. 
u My valour wins the third : and now take heed, 

* The law of their compact. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 132 

" That for the fourth my claim's without a flaw ; 

" Nor will I urge it longer : 

" Touch it who dares ; bat let him note, 
: - My paw's, that instant, down the caitiff's throat. >? 



132 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Why have the fabulists, 
should you suppose, chosen such weak and in- 
ferior animals as a Heifer, Goat and Sheep, to 
enter into partnership with the Lion ? 

Respondent. — To shew us, in applying this 
representation to human life, that weak and igno- 
rant persons only would expect no advantage to be 
taken of them in such a compact with one very 
superior in power. 

2. Ex. — How would you characterize a man of 
great power acting the part of the Lion in the fable ? 

Res. — As an oppressive tyrant, without sense of 
honour, or justice. 

5. Ex.— But is not the case of the fable, as it 
concerns the conduct of the Lion, an uncommon 
one ? 

Res. — History, antient and modern, to the latter 
of which we may apply the great political trans- 
actions of a certain despot in the present time, 
prove the contrary. 

Note. — The present fabulist believes, this apologue might 
eften be much too hastily applied beyond the sphere of. politics, 
to which perhaps it was originally confined : for in common 
life, and particularly in commerce, such associations are neces- 
sary and wise. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 133 



FABLE XX. 

THE BEAU JACKDAW. 

The Jackdaw was resolv'd to shine ; 

And thinking proper to assume 
The Peacock's plume, 

He pick'd up, here and there, a feather, 
And thought, they made him wonderfully fine, 
When stuck upon his jet-black coat together. 

Become a Peacock in his dress, 

He soon conceived himself no less, 
Than Peacock's company. 
And joining the next set 
By chance he met, 
Perceived himself less welcome far, than free. 
At first, it set the younger ones all giggling, 
To see him strutting, frolicking and niggling ; 
A very Jackdaw, 'spite of all grimaces. 

Soon wearied with his chattering and pertness, 
Both old and young, with great alertness, 
Pluck'd every borrow'd plume so gay, 

And drove him mortified away ; 

No more inclined to court the Graces. 
Now flying to his antient steeple, 
A colony of Jackdaw people. 



134 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

His hopes again no less deceive him. 
Shock'd at his airs, and mean desertion, 
They shew him nothing but aversion, 
And will no more receive him. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 135 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — It is needless to ask, whether 
foppery in dress is ridiculous : but in what cir- 
cumstances does it become contemptible ? 

Respondent. — In its frequent attempts to 
attract notice by finery out of the wearer's 
character. 

2. Ex. — In what view may this be regarded, as 
a lighter species of dishonesty ? 

Res. — In the assumption of something not 
one's own ; something generally belonging to 
our superiors. 

3. Ex. — Of what does a man betray a con- 
sciousness, who hangs out false colours like our 
Jackdaw ? 

Res. — Surely of the want of real merit. 

4. Ex. — Into what particular inconvenience 
and absurdity of conduct does the fable shew 
us, that the fop's vanity is likely to tempt him ? 

Res. — That of quitting his own sphere and 
thrusting himself into the society of his betters, 
who will certainly despise him. 

5. Ex. — What must he expect, when being 
laughed or turned out of their company, he would 
return to his own fraternity ? 



136 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

/i. , ' • ■ — , — „ — ., - " .. • — • • — ~ 

Res. — Well-merited contempt and rejection, 
like that which met the Jackdaw. 

6. Ex. — Foppery in dress may lead to foppery 
in manners. The letters of a celebrated Nobleman 
to his Son, abounding with advice to court and 
sacrifice to the Graces, having, on points, where 
the advice has no tendency to relax the rigour of 
moral principle, been advantageously attended to 
in polite education, I would ask, whether the 
national character of the British gentry would be 
really improved by much greater refinement of 
manners than it exhibits at present. 

Res. — Manners very elegant and refined being 
those which are, at the same time, the most natural 
and easy, are found so universally captivating, 
and are thence so easily made conducive to the 
success of insincere purposes, that the Christian 
moralist can hardly wish the manners of the 
educated ranks of British society, to pass their 
present point of refinement. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 137 

FABLE XXL 

AN ASS TOO FREE AND EASY. 

A thing, which really excites one's spleen ; 

A case as common, as provoking. 

Is, that an Ass is often seen, 

Upon his betters to be joking. 

A youngster, of the long-ear'd race, 
Meets the wild Boar; stern, ranging thro 1 the 
wood, 
With nimble pace : 

Forgetful of his own disparity, 
i Or thinking his own claims as good, 
He asks with pert familiarity, 

As if one Ass had met another, 

" How fares it, gentle brother ? 
<* Say, does your family, or mine inherit, 
u Yours, in sharp tusks ; or mine, in length of ears, 

u The more distinguish'd merit ?" 
The Boar indignant hears. 

And foaming bristles up with rage ? 
As threat'ning to engage ; 
When turning round, with sudden recollection, 

" Begone ; it ill becomes the brave, 

" To pour his vengeance on a slave : 

u Thy meanness proves thy sole protection." 



138 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is there any better way of 
correcting this asinine impertinence, often met 
with, than by the contempt with which it was 
returned by the Boar ? 

Respondent. — There is in general no better 
way. 

2. Ex. — Some questions on the subject of wag- 
gish impertinence having been proposed, and 
solved, on the fable of the Fox and the Stork, 
I would ask, whether the impertinence of stupid 
and ignorant coxcombs should not be corrected by 
an expression of contempt different from that, 
which was proper toward the wag, or the droll ? 

Res,— Certainly : contempt conveyed either by 
silence, or some happy turn of wit, recommended 
in that case, would be misunderstood, or thrown 
away in this before us. 

3. Ex. — To what then, specifically, ought we 
to resort on occasions of being troubled with the 
coxcombical impertinence like this in the fable ? 

Res. — To the short scornful reproof of the 
Boar ; or, on a repetition of the offence, to 
menaces of corporal chastisement, accompanied 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 139 

by expressive signs, gestures, and sharper tones 
of voice. 

4. Ex. — Though corporal punishment may be 
threatened, can it ever be applied to stupid imper- 
tinence, unless under the relation of parent and 
child, teacher and pupil, (nor here unless per- 
sisted in) or master and servant, consistently with 
the respect the person offended owes to himself ? 

Res. — -I think very rarely ; for, in many cases, 
blows may provoke blows, and then the offended 
party becomes ridiculous. 

5. Ex. — But may it not be questioned, whether 
personal castigation can be threatened in any case 
where not seriously meant ? 

Res, — It cannot, unless the threat has escaped 
under a momentary impulse of indignation, which 
frequently accompanies our contempt ; for then it 
is seriously meant, though the design may not 
remain on a little cool recollection. Otherwise a 
man stands convicted of insincerity toward him- 
self; a painful feeling to an ingenuous mind. 

6. Ex. — On the result then, do you apprehend, 
that an impertinent humour in persons of mean 
understanding, must sometimes be left uncorrected 
in any way, and that incorrigibility must be borne 
with ? 



140 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — Instances of this nature may certainly 
occur ; and the wise will treat them rather as 
natural than moral evils, and cease to contend 
with them, when they cannot be overcome. 

7. Ex. — Would not society gain on the score of 
good temper and candour of mind, if unpleasant 
sentiments and disagreeable speeches were qftener 
set down to want of natural discernment ? 

Res. — Indeed there seems reason to believe so ; 
since a disposition must first be cultivated to 
estimate duty and make constant allowance for 
characters of duller intellect and inferior merit : 
for where is it, they da not abound ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 141 

FABLE XXII. 

THE FROG AND THE OX. 

A Frog, no bigger than an egg, 
Stood eyeing a fine Ox, of noblest size : 

Behold ! the minikin, I beg. 

Moved more with envy than surprize, 
Begins to stretch, to stare, to swell ; 

You'll doubtless, wonder while I tell. 

To hear, the creature, not o'erwise, 

Is aiming at the Ox's size. 

" Observe me, mother, while I puff, 

(A call she's frequently repeating) 

" Pray tell me, is not this enough ?" 
" O ! no, replies the mother, quite astonish'd, 

" And could thy folly be admonish'd, 

u His size thou'dst never think of meeting!' 5 

She tried again, and swelling bluff, 
Believ'd, she then had reach'd it to an inch ; 
" Not yet, indeed !" — " Well, well, I'll never 

flinch ; 
u 'Twill do next time," she strove, and (who will 

wonder ?) 
She strove her last, and fairly burst asunder. 
The world abounds with creatures not more wise, 

Still apeing those above their size. 



142 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

The cit, whate'er his purse affords, 
Must have, as fine a villa as my lord's. 

The sheriff's lady thinks it right, 

Her spouse addressing, should be dubb'd a knight. 

In elder times, when folks were just as sage, 

No titled dame could stir without her page. 
I 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 143 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What is the vice condemned 
in this apologue ? 

Respondent. — An envious ambition. 

2. Ex.— Is there not a valuable quality of mind 
which is liable to be confounded with this vice ? 

Res. — You mean emulation : — It is so. 

3. Ex. — Do young persons, stimulated by ex- 
cellence in trying to equal or surpass those, who 
at present surpass them, fall under the condemna- 
tion of this fable ? 

Res. — Not necessarily ; because emulation may 
and ought to exist without envious ambition. 

4. Ex. — How are we to distinguish one from 
the other ? 

Res. — An .enviously ambitious person feels 
uneasiness and pain at the success, or superiority 
of others, with whom he compares himself, and 
would rather hurt them, or even himself, as we see 
in the fable, than not equal or surpass his rivals. — 
An emulous youth feels only a generous desire 
of attaining, or surpassing some supposed point 
or degree of excellence in another, apart from all 
consideration of the person or circumstances of 
his rival. 



144 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

5. Ex. — Would he then go so far, as to render 
services in his power to a rival, while endeavouring 
to emulate his virtues, or his talents ? 

Res. — Yes, such I apprehend to be the generous 
spirit of emulation ; whereas an envious ambition 
discovers something of meanness, and often of 
malice. 

6. Ex. — But are not emulations and envyings 
both condemned in scripture ? 

Res. — They are both placed in an odious cata- 
logue of sins and vices in the epistle to the Gala- 
tians (ch. 5, v. 19, 20, 21,) and, among the gen- 
tiles, generosity in contest, might perhaps so rarely 
have been seen, that emulation appeared but a 
lighter shade of envy. 

7. Ex. — Yet does not St. Paul, in a passage 
addressed to the Corinthians, suppose, that emula- 
tion may sometimes be laudable ? 

Res. — This may surely be inferred from his 
comparison of the Christian life to a race : " know 
ye not that they, which run in a race, run all, 
but one receiveth the prize ? So run, that ye may 
" obtain" Emulation is here advised, and regarded 
as a virtue ; nothing but the prize is kept in view, 
and no desire felt but that of being foremost in the 
race ; that is, foremost in the practice of Christian 
duties, without attending to any thing in the 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 145 

persons or circumstances of competitors, according 
to the distinction made above between true emula- 
tion and envy. 

8. Ex. — Do you suppose that, in our schools, 
emulation operates toward the attainment of ex- 
cellence as strongly as reward or punishment ? 

Res. — More forcibly I believe, than either with 
disinterested and ingenuous spirits. Punishment 
indeed, or the fear of it, cannot be conceived to 
have any stronger influence than merely to incite to 
the avoidance of imputed faults : but though a 
mind ambitious of reward will proceed actively 
toward high attainments, an emulous spirit, while 
it conceives abstractedly higher ideas perhaps of 
excellence than the former, is powerfully and con- 
stantly stimulated, to surpass some very laudable 
measure of it, discovered in a competitor. 



146 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 

FABLE XXIII. 

THE CROW, THE FOX, AND THE ROOK. 

Dame Crow sat perch'd upon a tree, 
While in her beak, she held a slice of cheese : 

This morsel Reynard chanc'd to see ; 
Nor faiPd it Reynard's liquorish taste to please. 

Wishing the dainty nearer reach. 
Much in this stile, he makes the dame a speech — 

" Good morrow, madam Crow 
" My eye-sight's blest, as here I sit below ; 
" To see so sweet a figure, and so dress'd; 

u Alas ! it robs my heart of rest ! 

" Now hear me (mind, I hate a lie :) 

" If, as your beauty strikes the eye, 
" Your voice's melody should charm my ear ; 

u No matter ever was so clear 
" As that o'er birds of song, you reign the Phoenix 
here." 

At the wag's praise elated above measure, 

Our Phoenix, riggling with excess of pleasure. 
Opens her beak, and strains her throat, 

To ravish Reynard with her note. 
Down drops the cheese ; 
Which Reynard laughing lost no time to seize. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 147 

A grave old Rook,* just passing by, 
Turn'd on our dupe a pitying eye. * 

Seeing, she much had wanted an adviser, 

Believ'd it neighbourly to try 
A lesson, which she thought would suit her : 
A word of truth might make her wiser, 
And save, perchance, her breakfast slice in future. 
" Henceforth, good cousin, shew more sense, 
" And learn, 'tis ev'ry flatterer's rule, 
" Whene'er his cant has made a fool, 
" To live ; at least, to laugh at his expence. 
u If sober truth for once thy taste can please, 

" This may be worth a slice of cheese." 
Our bird, with native croak and face of rue, 
Own'd, but too late., the observation true. 



* The present fabulist flatters himself he has improved the 
plan of this apologue by introducing a third interlocutor, in 
order to remove the absurdity, apparently current from hand to 
hand, from iEsop's time till now, of making the Fox give a 
lesson to the Crow inconsistent with the roguish cunning of his 
character, and directly calculated to defeat his success in any 
future trial on the same silly gull. A successful flatterer must 
not be supposed, hastily to renounce practice in a profitable 
quarter. 



148 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What ill consequence, be- 
yond ridicule justly incurred, arises, according to 
this fable, from being deluded by flattery ? 

Respondent. — Sometimes, the loss of pro- 
perty. 

2. Ex. — But does a piece of cheese represent 
nny serious article of property ? 

Res. — It may represent every sort of property : 
we see those who listen to flatterers, every day 
inveigled into great embarrassments, and not unfre- 
quently choused out of their estates. 

3. Ex. — Then, are not flattery, and dishonesty, 
synonymous terms ? 

Res. — Not altogether, such ; but flattery is one 
species of dishonesty. 

4. Ex. — How do you define flattery ? 
Res.— False compliments, or undeserved praise, 

given with a view to deceive. 

5. Ex.- — Do those conventional phrases and com- 
pliments, which pass from one man to another in the 
ccjmrnon intercourse of life ; for instance, in the 
subscription of letters ; in the acknowledgment of 
very trivial favours ; in the meeting of friends and 
acquaintances, &c. ; do such conventional phrases 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-STDE. 149 



and compliments, it may be asked, fall under the 
definition of flattery ? 

Res. — Certainly not • they are a current Goin, of 
which every body knowing the small value, no 
body is deceived by it. 

6. Ex. — But why are they used, if they mean 
almost nothing ? 

Res. — To prevent a blunt, abrupt and ungra- 
cious manner of doing and saying things : a man- 
ner always disagreeably felt among well-educated 
persons. 

7. Ex. — But do not titles and epithets of honour 
and dignity, namely, u my lord" — u your grace" 
— " the right honourable" — u the reverend" — a the 
worshipful," when addressed to persons, whom we 
know to possess little dignity, honour, or personal 
worth, and sometimes none, fall within the defini- 
tion of flattery ? 

Res.— No : they are only conventional like the 
phrases above alluded to ; and being universally 
understood, as not addressed to the moral character 
of persons, but to their rank, station or office, the 
use of them involves no intention, or hazard of 
deceit. 

8. Ex. — But does not our divine Law-giver 
say : " Let your communication be yea, yea ; 
nay, nay ? 



150 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — He does ; but we must take the spirit of 
all his precepts rather than the letter : we shall, 
otherwise, confine their intended application, and 
make them useless in a thousand cases where they 
are meant to direct our conduct. This precept 
means, that affirmation or negation, on whatever 
subject, to which different words or phrases must 
be adapted according to their different nature, 
must be simply true and sincere, without equivo- 
cation or mental reservation. 

9. Ex. — But what then meant our Saviour by 
adding " that whatsoever is more than these," that 
is, than these words, " yea, yea, and nay, nay," 
cometh of evil ? 

Res. — Undoubtedly, that there would be no 
need, to confirm affirmation or negation by volun- 
tary oaths, which would soon have the evil effect 
of destroying all confidence in the common forms 
of speech. The subject of swearing introduced 
the precept. See Matt. ch. 5. v. 34-5-6-7. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 151 

FABLE XXIV. 
Cesar's reward of officiousness. 

There was at Rome a kind of creature, 

For ever restless, ever out of breath ; 
I know not, how I shall define his nature ; 

One, who fatigued himself to death, 
With doing nothing ; no one e'er obliging. 

Yet every one he met besieging 
With his Officiousness ; a whiffling elf 

Of that unmeaning race, 
That's every where, yet always out of place ; 

A plague alike to others, and himself. 

Phaedrus ennui'd with often seeing 

This idly -busy sort of being, 
Aim'd to correct his folly by a story, 

Which I will beg to lay before ye. 

But first I make it a condition, 
With each kind reader, howsoe'er discerning. 
That he allow a small display of learning, 
Upon the ancient mode of manumission. 

This custom, should I fail to mention, 
Since the most courteous reader may forget, 

Or, possibly, not know it yet, 
Our story might escape his apprehension. 

" When to a Roman slave was given* 



152 FABLES FOB, THE FIRE-SIDE, 

" His freedom ; — to confirm that boon of Heaven. 

" From his lord's hand with joy elate, 
" He craved a solemn blow upon his pate." 
Pray, gentle reader, note this intimation, 

And I'll proceed with my relation. 

Caesar, my author says, Tiberius, 

One of shrewd wit, tho' stern and serious, 

Travelling to Naples, on his way 
Desirous of repose. 

Stops at Misenum for a day ; 
Where on its top, as every scholar knows, 

Lucullus built a country seat, 
For air and sea views, his belov'd retreat. 
Whilst Caesar in the garden took his pleasure ; 
Walk'd thro'' each alley, trod each verdant lawn, 

Breathing the zephyrs of the dawn, 

In silence musing at his leisure, 
Darts sudden on his footsteps, a curl'd slave, 

Whose proper duty 'twas, to wait 

For errands at an outer gate. 

His dress tucked up, the busy knave 
Seizes a watering pot : at every turn, 

For fear th' imperial shoe should burn, 

Or the least particle of dust 

Excite his majesty's disgust ; 

Where'er he finds the royal eye, 

But no where else, within a twinkling, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 153 

He falls a spouting and a sprinkling, 
With, here, a drop, and, there, an inundation ; 
Intruding on the Prince's privacy, 

And fav'rite hour of meditation. 

Tiberius guess'd from his condition, 
These needless pains all aim'd at manumission. 
When our officious spark again drew near. 
Presenting with a grin, his forward pate, 

The Prince exclaims : " my box o'th' ear. 
u Cannot be purchased at so cheap a rate." 



154 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — How do you distinguish offici- 
ousness from dutiful respect ? 

Respondent. — As having only the appearance 
of either duty or respect, and that accompanied by 
an impertinent and interested assiduity, annoying 
the person to whom it is shewn. 

2. Ex. — Does officiousness specifically belong 
to the character of a slave. 

Res. — Certainly not; though it oftener makes 
part of his character than that of a freeman. 

3. Ex. — Ought we at once to suppose it, to have 
made part of the characters of iEsop and Phaedrus, 
who both were slaves ? 

Res. — Probably we ought not ; but this is said 
without absolute decision : since moralists, though 
ever so clear sighted to the faults of others, do 
not always avoid them in their own practice. 

4. Ex. — Have superiors in title, rank, or con- 
dition, a right to the respect, or duty of their 
inferiors ? 

Res. — Undoubtedly a right by the spirit of so- 
ciety, which considers these distinctions, as among 
its main pillars : a right confirmed by divine sanction . 

5. Ex. — But have rank, title, and condition, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 155 

a just claim to respect or duty, apart from worth 
of character ? 

Res. — The distinctions themselves have ; though 
in this case, not the persons who bear them. 

6. Ex. — But is not the respect or duty, always 
addressed immediately to the person ? 

Res. — Yes, it is so externally ; for the person is 
considered as the representative of those qualities, 
which the spirit of civil society courteously sup- 
poses, to have earned those distinctions. But 
while they are addressed to a person not deserving 
them, they are in fact paid only to his situation. 

7. Ex. — But is there not something feigned in 
this kind of respect ? 

Res. — Not at all : it is a sincere respect to the 
situation ; but always conventionally addressed to 
the person. If he knows himself not to deserve 
it, he seems contented that the world apply it to 
his situation ; to which alone it belongs. If he is 
conscious of deserving it, he partakes it with his 
situation. External subjection, and the duties con- 
nected with it, can, no other way, be more sincerely 
shewn to the higher powers. 

8. Ex. — But to return to the intention of the 
fable, from which several of the preceding ques- 
tions, though important, have but indirectly arisen ; 
would Tiberius, as a king, more properly have 



156 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

punished the impertinent and interested officious- 
ness of the slave, than by disappointing its aim ? 

Res. — Though officiousness so impertinent and 
troublesome, with a view to nothing but the slave's 
own interest, might have deserved corporal chas- 
tisement from any but a royal hand, it had been 
beneath the dignity of the Prince to inflict it. A 
king, unless personally assailed, cannot consistently 
with decorum, or the respect he owes himself, lift his 
hand in the punishment of a subject, or indeed of 
a fellow creature. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 157 

FABLE XXV. 

THE EAGLE AND THE RAVEN. 

Although my animals are gentle teachers, 

And far from talking loud, 

I'd wager I could point out preachers, 
Who lecture worse the mighty and the proud. 

These, would they listen to my fable, 

Would find they're frequently unable, 

To use the blessings they possess. 

Whether of greater worth or less, 

Without the counsel and assistance 

Of those, to whom they teach their distance. 

A potent Eagle, all despotic, 

Refin'd in taste, perhaps exotic, 

Trussing a Turtle in his claw. 

Gave him an airing to his nest ; 

There destin'd to regale his maw ; 
But found upon arrival, though possess'd, 
Of a delicious treat, 

And a good appetite to eat, 

The creature fearful of exposure, 

Lock'd in a castle-like inclosure. 

A Raven flying by that way, 
Observed the case, and eyeing, with much pleasure, 

The royal bird's convivial treasure, 



158 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

He laugh 'd to see him, 'midst his plenty, starving. 

Merely for want of skill in carving : 
And told the Eagle, he could break the spell, 

And get the dainty from the shell ; 

But his condition were at least, 
An invitation to the turtle feast. 

The Eagle thought there was enough ; 

The terms met therefore no rebuff*. 

u Now, says the Raven, take your flight ; 

a The creature in your talons lock, 

" And soaring till your out of sight, 
u Let fall your precious burthen on a rock ; 

u You'll quickly hear his armour crash ; 
u Descend and feast upon the calepash ; 

" The fins, green fat, and calapee, 

" Will serve extremely well for me." 
The Eagle listen'd to the sly old sinner ; 
And posting to a proper elevation, 

The scheme succeeds to admiration : 
And lo ! our feather'd aldermen at dinner ! 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 159 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — The last fable suggested some 
questions concerning respect and duty from in- 
feriors to the great. What is the design of this ? 

Respondent. — To teach, that gratitude is due 
from the great to their inferiors in return for the 
benefits they derive from the knowledge, talents, 
labours, and services of the latfer. 

2. Ex. — Does not this apologue intimate, that 
the great may be so circumstanced as to be unable, 
either to enjoy, or to use their own possessions, 
without the assistance of their inferiors ? 

Res. — It does so, manifestly, 

3. Ex. — What is to be justly inferred from this, 
since the dependent state of the inferior classes of 
society, equally on the great, and on one another, 
is not to be denied ? 

R ES . — That the dependence of the great on the 
inferior classes, and on one another, seems no less 
evident ; and that, in all civil communities, men 
from the highest to the lowest condition, are, in 
some way or other, reciprocally dependent. 

4. Ex. — What virtue then, from this view of 
things, is for the happiness of mankind most im- 
periously called into practice ? 



160 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — That universal love of every son of Adam 
to his brother man — Christian charity. 

5. Ex. — Which of the human passions may we 
pronounce the most generally hostile to the happi- 
ness of mankind ? 

Res. — Pride; the passion, which universally 
predominates in every human breast, and confines 
a great deal too much of our love to ourselves. 

6. Ex. — Whence comes this universal dominion 
of pride, since it is a proverb in every mouth, that 
pride was not made for man ? 

Res. — To what but that ease, with which a 
slender line of boundary is ever over-stepped ; that 
line, which sometimes just divides virtue from vice, 
and in the present case, pride from self-esteem? 
If self-esteem be not properly a virtue, it is at least 
a precious sentiment in the heart of man, and the 
foundation of almost every virtue. 

7. Ex. — Can then even humility itself, that 
necessary virtue, be founded on self-esteem ? 

Res. — Nothing more naturally. True humility 
would be but imperfectly practised without self- 
esteem. Where this is wanting, it is apt to 
degenerate into a superstitious, if not a self-tor- 
menting abasement, which is often mistaken by 
fanatics for Christian sanctity. Nothing, however, 
of this sort, appears to have made part of the 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 161 

character of any of the immediate disciples of a 
master, the most exemplary teacher of true humility 
ever known to the earth. 

8. Ex. — In whom yet may this extreme self- 
abasement be considered as no fault ? 

Res. — In every very wicked man in the first 
stages of a sincere repentance, and before his 
return to virtue and religion has received its con- 
firmation from supernal grace. 

9. Ex.-— Whence shall this confirmation be 
known ? 

Res. — By a total change of disposition and 
conduct from bad to good, which has actually 
taten place, and time has proved. 



I 



162 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

FABLE XXVI. 

THE COCK AND THE JEWEL. 

Fine things are often out of place ; 
And this seem'd very much the case, 
When once a Cock, a hungry spark, 

Raking for breakfast on the dunghill straw, 
Turn'd up a Jewel with his claw. 
Well might he cry, " I've miss'd my mark ! 
" This glittering thing ; what is't ? — a pearl, 
u Or diamond of superior water ? 
" 'T would grace the finger of an Earl, , 

u Or sparkle on the bosom of his daughter. 
" But for myself, I really find 
" A thing more suited to my mind, 
u Nor think my labour half so vain, 
" When I scratch up a single grain 
" Of millet, or of humble barley : 

iC Nay, those stand higher in my estimation, 
u If I may speak my judgment fairly, 
" Than all the Jewels in the nation." 
When Phaedrus met a dunce not able 

To taste his wit, he bade him read our fable. 






FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 163 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is the tendency of this fable., 
as applied by Phaedrus to criticism on subjects of 
taste, quite morally correct ? 

Respondent. — It may, I think, well be doubted : 
for till the criterion of taste be universally fixed, 
it betrays a want of moral candour to stigmatize 
any one, as a fool, or dunce, who may, either from 
a supposed deficiency of taste, or intelligence in 
some particular province of art or genius, judge 
differently from ourselves ; while in some other we, 
and perhaps the world in general, might have 
reason to hold his judgment and knowledge in the 
highest estimation. The lapidary, or the court 
lady would, it is likely, from conventional pre- 
judice or fancy, as much as from any thing that 
could be pronounced a just principle of taste, prefer 
a diamond or a pearl, to a grain of barley. But 
the husbandman, that should prefer a grain of 
wheat or barley to diamonds or pearls, putting 
the arbitrary value in money, set upon the latter, 
out of question, would have nine-tenths of the 
world on his side to one, who would give a pre- 
ference to the jewels. 

2. Ex. — But, to confine my questions here to 



164 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

the subject of fables, — by what, or by whose 
authority, are we to determine, as some persons are 
inclined, that fables written for instance in the 
concise manner of Phaedrus, or of iEsop his 
model, are, merely in the light of works of 
genius, to be preferred to those written more dif- 
fusely composed in the manner of La Fontaine ? 

Res.— It is admitted, there are two parties on 
this question : but who will pretend an authority 
to determine it. It seems more candid and rea- 
sonable to suppose, that each manner may have 
equal merit, as addressed to different classes of 
readers. 

3. Ex. — To what class do you think may be 
addressed most properly fables, in the concise 
manner of JEsop and Phaedrus ? 

Res.* — Writers, who think young children 
capable of understanding the moral intention 
under the allegory of fables, will probably adopt 
the concise manner with more success. For since 
a short apologue will more easily be learnt by 
heart than a long one, it will have the better chance 
at least of being entirely understood by being fre- 
quently brought before the learner's mind. To 
young gentlemen, in our grammar schools, iEsop 

' * See the Introduction on this topic. N 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 165 

and Phaedrus are, on different accounts, advan- 
tageously recommended. 

4. Ex. — By what classes of readers are fables, 
in the diffuser manner of La Fontaine, perused 
with more advantage and pleasure ? 

Res. — By young persons approaching adole- 
scence, as not being liable to mistake their meaning, 
at the same time that they are likely to be more 
entertained ; and probably by readers in general, 
farther advanced, whether to manhood or old age ; 
who, having had a wider scope of observation and 
experience, will be pleased with those natural and 
characteristic circumstances with which, he, and 
his best imitators, describe the actors and enliven the 
action of their fables ; thus frequently giving them 
an interest in proportion to their length. 

5. Ex. — But is not Phaedrus admired, by all 
classical readers at least, for his sententious brevity, 
and the simplicity and neatness of his Latin stile ? 

Res. — Yes, and very justly ; and the more so, 
as being a native of Greece, that he should, at the 
same time, have acquired the idiomatic stile of 
conversation, such as probably was used in the 
Court of Augustus; where he lived, after being 
brought from Macedonia by that Emperor's father, 
Octavius. 

6. Ex . — But excepting the article of sententious 



166 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

brevity, inconsistent with La Fontaine's manner of 
narrating, does not the Frenchman in his own 
language possess all the other characteristics of 
Phaedrus's stile in their full perfection ? 

Res. — That at least will surely be admitted in 
his favour by all, who are much, or equally 
conversant with both languages. Besides that the 
graceful " Naivete" so much admired in La 
Fontaine, and that much more the character of his 
genius and disposition, than of the language he 
wrote in, has always given a peculiar charm to his 
fables. 

7. Ex. — Is not his stile in verse, what Madame 
de Sevigne's is in prose ; and are not both, with 
the happiest effect, adapted to the familiar nar- 
ration of fables, tales, and lively stories and inci- 
dents in letters and conversation ? 

Res. — Critical readers in general are, I believe, 
of this opinion, who find the stile of our British 
fabulists, Gay and Moore, and some others, in 
one stiff unvaried measure, often swelling into the 
language and transpositions of serious poetry ; so 
as to lose the natural and sprightly grace of easy 
and familiar narration. 

8. Ex. — Who among our English authors of 
tales and fables, in verse, are reckoned to have 
succeeded best in their stile and manner ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 167 

Res. — Mathew Prior; Bob Lloyd, as he was 
commonly called ; Hall, the friend of Sterne ; and 
those of the present day, Mrs. Barbauld, Lewis, 
G. Ellis, and some others, whose names are in- 
vidiously omitted, but not recollected, or perhaps 
unknown to me. 



168 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

FABLE XXVII. 

THE LION AND ASS A HUNTING. 

The Lion's appetite more keen and hearty 

Than usual on a summer's morning, 
He ask'd the Ass to share his hunting party. 
That he might take advantage of his horning ; 
But bade him screen himself behind the bushes. 

Whene'er he raised his pipe. 

Orders observed, for business ripe ; 

Loud brays the Ass : and out there rushes 

Each, from his lurking hole, affrighted 
Beast after beast : 
— His majesty delighted, 
Kill'd all he liked> and made a dainty feast. 
The Lion, thus regaled, had filled his maw, 
And rested after dinner on his paw. 
This was the moment for an Ass to speak : 

" An't please your majesty, 
" Pray, did you thihk your huntsman's horn too 

weak ?" 
" Weak ? said the Lion, smiling graciously : 
" Had I not known your family and kin, 

" And seen that perking length of ear, 
" When the woods echo'd with your horrid din, 
« I, like the rest, had scamper'd off for fear." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 169 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Is it not difficult to say, what 
point of moral instruction is aimed at in this 
fable? 

Respondent. — Indeed, it seems not easy. 

2. Ex. — A great man might be represented 
availing himself of some frightful, or disgraceful 
quality in an inferior, in order to excite terror, or 
aversion, on some occasion or other, for his own 
purposes ; but can that have been the main drift 
of the fable ? 

Res. — I think not. 

3. Ex. — But can you discern nothing wrong in 
our Asinine huntsman's doubting the efficacy 
of his horn, after it had been so visibly instru- = 
mental to the success of the chace ? 

Res. — There was surely some appearance of 
affected humility in the Ass's expression of doubt 
on this occasion ; and something too bordering on 
a contemptible kind of vanity, in wishing to found 
a title to applause on a property so odious and dis- 
agreeable, as to have excited nothing but terror 
and disgust. 

4. Ex. — Do you think these conclusions fairly 
collected from the Lion's praise ? 



170 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SII>£. 

Res. — I do ; since its ironical humour conveys 
the most pointed sarcasm. 

5. Ex. — But would you rather term the Ass's 
ambitious fatuity moral turpitude, or moral in- 
firmity ? 

Res. — Surely, the latter. 

6. Ex. — Should not then the Lion's generosity 
of nature have rather inclined him to pity, than to 
ridicule infirmity ? 

Res. — We may suppose, it would have done 
so, had the infirmity been unaccompanied by 
affectation ; which, wherever discovered, is a fair 
subject for ridicule. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 171 

FABLE XXVIII. 

THE OWL AND THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Have you not known that sort of man, 
Whose only pleasure is to plague you ? 
And tho' you shun him, how you can. 
Who yet sticks by you like an ague. 
But serious mischiefs oft this humour catch, 
And the fool's malice more than meets his match. 
Hard by the nest of that sagacious fowl, 
Minerva's favourite, the Owl, 
_. A teazing Grasshopper was wont to sit, 
Whose sole amusement, and delight, 
It was, by day and oft by night, 
In chirpings shrill, to play the wit 
At the sagacious bird's expence ; 
Only for want of common sense. 
xi Methinks you lead a very doltish life, 
« To rise, when other birds are gone to bed ; 

" But Mice, perhaps, are then most rife, 
" And those, who look so comely, are well fed. 5 * 
When morning dawn'd, and to her hollow tree, 
The Owl return'd and thought of sleeping ; 
There was the Grasshopper, still keeping 

The same shrill strain ; 
As pert, as ever, and as free. 



172 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

The Owl begg'd silence oft in vain ; 
it each request the Grasshopper again. 

In means of molestation^ rich , 

But rais'd his pipe to higher pitch. 
The Owl at length in deep despair, 

Seeing the vanity of prayer. 
Fatigued and vex'd, with eye-lids blinking. 
But not once closed in sleep, was thinking, 

How he might hit upon redress. 
'Twixt sleep and waking, fancy often teems 

With a variety of schemes : 
And one arose, which promised good success.* 

" Your voice and wit, she cries, no doubt, 
" To all the world must clearly point you out 
u A fav'rite pupil of the god of song. 
" Charm'd as I am, I bid adieu to rest, 

" And fain would have you for my guest. 

u You wits like nectar ; come along ; 

" This is your moment to be blest. 
" Minerva listens, when I chuse to ask, 
" And from Olympus lately dropped a flask. " 

The Grasshopper, quite parch 'd with thirst, 

And with the Owl's high compliment elated, 
No second invitation waited ; 
Hopp'd off at once, and reach'd the hollow first. 
The Owl came close behind ; his captive seiz'd, 
Devour'd him ; sunk to rest ; and woke appeasM. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 173 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — The morality of this fable 
appearing questionable in more points than one, I 
would ask, what they are ? 

Respondent. — In t^e extreme severity of the 
Grasshopper's punishment ; in the Owl's insidious 
artifice to get the insect into her power, and the ill 
example of taking vengeance into her own hands. 

2. Ex. — But should we not examine the points 
of view, in which the two antient fabulists proba- 
bly regarded the conduct of our animal actors in 
this apologue, before we accuse them of teaching 
immoral lessons ? 

Res. — Justice, surely, requires it. 

3. Ex. — Considering now the character of the 
Owl, as a creature of retired habits, wishing to 
indulge her slumbers in peace, and giving no 
offence to the Grasshopper, do not these circum- 
stances give the appearance of unprovoked out- 
rage to the Grasshopper's behaviour ?, 

Res. — This may* be granted ; and farther, that 
such conduct deserved severe chastisement ; but 
the punishment of death is beyond all proportion 
to the offence. 

4. Ex. — Does hot this objection lie against 






e 



174 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

many a penal law under governments renowned 
for their wisdom : 

Res. — Yes ; but that plea will as little defend the 
fabulist, as prove the justice of such governments 
in the case alledged. The fabulist is professedly 
a teacher of strict morality ; of which justice is 
one cardinal rule ; and that too, to which law- 
givers always pretend a strict conformity. 

5. Ex. — Well; conceding this point, jet^ 
since in order to inflict a proper punishment, the 
culprit must be apprehended, I would ask, how 
can you blame the Owl for using the means in her 
power for this purpose ? 

Res. — If such an insidious bait, as the Owl used, 
were the only practicable means, perhaps the 
necessary course of executive justice might defend 
it ; but the fabulist might surely have suggested 
means less exceptionable. 

6. Ex. — Though the spirit of this proceeding 
was insidious, is the Owl to be supposed guilty of 
falsehood in telling the Grasshopper, she had 
nectar to give her ? 

Res. — Not at all : for the Owl, being mytholo- 
gically called Minerva's favourite bird, might, 
without any violence to truth, be supposed oc- 
casionally to receive a boon at the hands of her 
mistress : her insidious use of it is all we object to, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 175 

7. Ex. — But to come to the last article of 
censure on the fabulists, respecting this apologue : 
since the Grasshopper is placed by nature in no 
subjection to the Owl, if he were only to be con- 
sidered as her fellow subject in the animal creation, 
should not the fabulists have suggested some tribu- 
nal, before which he might have been legally cited 
by the Owl for sentence on his misdemeanor? 

Res. — This indeed appears the only way, to 
have prevented the immoral example of taking 
vengeance into her own hands. 

8. Ex. — What are we then to conclude upon 
this fable } 

Res. — That all it teaches ought not to be learnt, 
except the general intimation, that crimes ought to 
be punished; much too trite a precept to need 
inculcation through the ingenious medium of 
fable. 

9. Ex. — Why do you suppose then, the pre- 
sent fabulist, chose to offer this fable to the perusal 
of young persons ? 

Res. — To put them by these questions on their 
guard against the wrong lessons sometimes unde- 
signedly conveyed by very popular fabulists. 
Several instances of this inadvertency in Gay are 
not wanting. 



176 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

FABLE XXIX. 

THE WOLF AND THE CRANE. 

He, who, through avarice or folly tempted, 
Ventures a service, that may risk his head, 
Must not from evil think to 'scape exempted ; 
Nor much to wonder will he need, 
Howe'er successful be the deed, 
Should he be ill repaid. 
A rav'nous Wolf 
In too much hurry to devour his prey, 
Lodg'd in his throat, tho' wide enough the gulf, 
An awkward bone, which should have pass'd that 
way. 
Thro' all the bestial neighbourhood 
Howling he ran with piteous moan ; 
Begging some tenant of the wood 
To play the surgeon in his case ; 
And then, with rueful face, 
" To him, says he, who plucks the bone 

u I promise my regard, 
" Besides a lucrative reward." 
To undertake the bus'ness each is loth ; 
Each meditates excuse ; 
Till all at length refuse. 
He then confirms his promise with an oath, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. " 177 

Which tempts a foolish interested Crane, 

To risk his head within the murd'rous lane. 

Success, however, crowns the operation, 

And he of course demands his recompence. 

" What recompence? You're merry on th' occasion, 

u Or else of gratitude you want all sense," 

Th' insulting caitiff said ; 
" 'Tis recompence enough to save your head." 



178 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What are we taught by this 
apologue, to avoid in the example of the Crane ? 

Respondent. — The folly of running into ma- 
nifest danger for the sake of gain. 

2. Ex. — But, from what was the Crane to con- 
clude it might be dangerous, to render the Wolf 
the assistance he so earnestly sought ? 

Res. — From the natural cruelty and rapacity of 
the Wolf, and his general bad character, which 
made all promises, whether upon his honour or his 
oath, equally suspicious and dangerous to be 
trusted. 

3. Ex. — But, applying the case to mankind, an 
important question remains ; whether Christian 
charity oughit, in such imminent distress, to risk a 
great probability of personal safety ? 

Res. — Nothing can oblige one man to put his 
own life into very probable hazard, to save that 
of another : for this were to disobey the prime 
law of nature, self-preservation. 

4. Ex. — Is there any circumstance, yet unno- 
ticed in the fable, supposing the Crane disposed to 
have given his assistance from a motive of charity 
instead of covetousness, that could have led him 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 179 

to question, whether he should risk his own life, in 
attempting the service desired I 

Res. — Yes ; the apprehension of clanger mani- 
fested by every other creature, refusing assistance, 
as it was undoubtedly on the ground of the Wolfs 
ill character, and their unanimous opinion on the 
risk of complying. 

5. Ex. — But ought we to conclude the Crane at 
all justified, since w 7 e see, he was safe at last, 
though abused and unrewarded ? 

Res. — Certainly not : we ought never to judge 
the merit of any person, or action, from events ; 
the absolute certainty of which being always veiled 
in futurity, leaves the merits of our conduct to be 
determined solely by its real motive ; and that, in 
the case before us, was the Crane's avarice. 



180 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE XXX. 

THE SENSIBLE ASS. 

A Pedlar went to catch his Ass, 
Who spent his leisure time at grass ; 

When he discovered, looking round him, 
An army of his country's foes : 
They march in formidable rows, 
And at first sight confound him. 

Our "Pedlar, knowing well, what ills environ 
The man, who meddles with cold iron, 
Relish'd no loitering in the field, 
To brave the dangers of a battle, 

Or hear the clash of swords on helmets rattle. 
Ready at once his ground to yield, 
He mounts his donkey in a flurry, 

And bangs his sides, to intimate his hurry. 
The Ass demanding what occasion, 
To use this great precipitation ; 
His master answers, u To be sure, 
" By flight our safety to secure ; 
" Hence must we soon be distant far, 
" Or else we're prisoners of war." 

The Ass replies ; " but e'er I move the faster, 
" Pray tell me, should I change my master, 

" Will the vile panniers, or the galling pack, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 181 

" Be oftener laid upon my back ? 
" Will these poor bones be less in requisition, 
" Or shall I live in worse condition ?" 
" Nor worse, nor better," says the Clown ; 
" If that, cries Donkey, be the case, 
u I shall jog on my wonted pace ; 
" For you, yourself, will surely own, 
u It matters not my master's name, 
" If still my hardships be the same." 






182 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — The Ass makes a much better 
figure in this apologue than in his hunting party 
with the Lion ; but what do you think of the con- 
duct of his master ? 

Respondent. — That, in requiring the Ass to 
change his characteristic sobriety of movement, on 
a pretence of the creature's welfare being equally 
endangeied with his own, he made a selfish and 
false representation of the case. 

2. Ex. — Does the moral of the fable turn wholly 
on that point ? 

Res. — Not wholly. 

3. Ex. — What further instruction is designed 
in it. 

Res. — In the Ass's conclusion, the fabulist inti- 
mates, that there is no wisdom in a man's changing 
his conduct, where no reasonable motive appears 
for it. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 18S 

FABLE XXXI. 

THE CHILD AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. 

My fable represents a foolish case ; 
Remonstrance out of time and place. 
A Child, too near the Thames, one day 
Unluckily fell in, at play. 
Some willows hanging o'er the river's brink, 
By grace of Providence, he caught a twig ; 
But had strength fail'd him, still might sink. 

A prating Pedant, bluff and big, 
The tyrant of a petty school, pass'd by : 
u Help, help, pray save me, or I die/' 
The infant's ceaseless cry, 
Struck, from the first, the Pedant's ear : 
He turn'd, and drew deliberately near. 
Then, with a magisterial twang. 
Broke silence in a set harangue. 
u A pretty blockhead, thou ! a careless imp ! 
u And weaker, in this element, 

" Than prawn, or shrimp. 
" By what ill fate wast hither sent, 
" T' expose thyself to such disasters, 
u The plague, alike, of parents, and of masters i 
" Is not a fine employment theirs, whose task 
" It is ; to guard the footsteps, let me ask, 



184 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



" Of all such graceless elves ; 
* 4 Born, one would swear, but to destroy themselves S ' * 

This furious, well-timed, bluster o'er ; 
He drags the half-drown'd infant on the shore- 

In great abundance flies the game, 

At which the fabulist takes aim. 
Yes, every censor, pedant, prater, scold, 

(A thriving race too numerous to be told) 
May in this story see his picture. 
On all occasions, whether small or great, 
Their only object is a theme for prate. 
Could ye, my praters ! listen, I've a stricture 
Suggested by the fable, which may teach 

A lesson, worth your learning, each 1 — 
" Snatch me from dagger, and then make yosr 
speech," 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 185 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What ought to be the conduct 
of any one, who sees a fellow creature in such 
imminent danger as the unfortunate infant in the 
fable ? 

Respondent. — Doubtless to give the most 
immediate assistance in his power. 

2. Ex. — How would you characterize the 
speech, which the School-master here stands to 
make, while he sees the Child's danger ? 

Res. — As absurd, unseasonable, and cruel. 

3. Ex. — The fabulist having pointed out censori- 
ous persons, pedants, praters, and scolds, all as rather 
seeking occasion to talk than to give their help or 
sober advice in cases of accident, distress, or neces- 
sity, which of the characters here specified should 
you suppose most likely to merit this reflection ? 

Res. — It is difficult to determine between the 
manifest prominence of the pedant and prater ; one 
so fond of talking, to shew his knowledge, in, or 
out of season ; and the other not less so, only to 
shew how much he has to say for himself, accord- 
ing to the vulgar ambition, or humour of praters. 



186 



FABLES FOR THE FIItE-SlBE. 



FABLE XXXII. 

THE APE AND THE DOLPHIN. 

The Greeks, whene'er they went to sea. 
Took with them jugglers, dogs, and apes on board > 
At Athens, or in that vicinity, 

A vessel, once, thus oddly stor'd, 

Was shipwreck'd ; and 'tis said, 
The crew had sunk but for the Dolphin's aid, 

That gentle fish, the friend of man. 

As Pliny says, (and who can doubt it ? 

None but an infidel would scout it) 
Assists him in distress, where'er he can. 
An Ape avaiPd himself, on this occasion, 

Of his resemblance to our kind ; 
And, in the Dolphin's friendly inclination, 

His safety hoped to find. 
The Dolphin, taking him for one of us, 

Plac'd the Ape gravely on his back. 

Whoe'er had seen him mounted thus. 
And borne so swimmingly upon his hack. 
Far as appearances, he might rely on, 
Had, perhaps, fancied him Arion.* 



* Aricwu a musician and poet of Lesbos, said to be saved f>y 
a dolphin. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 187 

The Dolphin, nearly got to land, 

By chance demanded, whence his rider came ? 
Wishing at first to understand, 
Whether from Athens 'twas : — " Yes, yes, 
"I'm known to every body there, 
" And should you have some nice affair, 
" Perhaps you'll find it not amiss 

" To claim my services ; for my relations 
" There occupy the highest stations : 
" I'm cousin to the mayor." 

The Dolphin could not fail to stare. 
66 Then the Piraeus must, no doubt, 
" The honour of your presence share ?" 
" Yes, every day ; I scarce stir out, 
" Be it alone, or with my wife, 
" Without a call on friend Piraeus, 
" Who's always very glad to see us ; 
" An honest fellow on my life !" 

I need not say how much the Dolphin wonder'd, 
While thus his boasting rider blunder'd ; 

Whose tongue so fast before his knowledge ran, 

He took the port of Athens for a man. 

Our fish now turning up a keener eye, 
From top to toe surveys the Ape, 

And takes a nicer measure of his shape : 

For he had found no further need to try 

The least exertion of his pains, 



188 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

To ford the shallows of th' impostor's brains. 
Perceiving now, a beast was all his freight, 

He plunges back into a wave ; 
And, eased his shoulders of a worthless weight, 
He seeks some ship-wreck'd mariner to save. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 189 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Where does the character of the 
Ape in this fable find its resemblance among men ? 

Respondent. — In that of the lying impostor. 

2. Ex.— Since that character is but too common 
among men, how is it, the Dolphin is made to 
conclude that he had not carried a man but a beast 
upon his back ? 

Res. — The fabulist means, that persons, cha- 
racteristically liars and impostors, fall so far 
short of the dignity of their human nature, that 
they may be considered, as nothing better than 
apes of men* 

3. Ex. — But when the Dolphin had brought 
the Ape so near to land, and plunged him again 
into the sea, was he not wanting in that benignity 
of disposition attributed to him by naturalists ? 

Res. — By no means : for they suppose the 
Dolphin's kindness and partiality to be confined 
to the human species. 

4. Ex. — Say, how the fable would have lost its 
moral, if the Dolphin had acted otherwise ? 

Res. — Because its intended lesson of instruction 
is to warn the paltry tribe of liars and impostors, 
that they may meet the punishment they deserve. 



190 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



FABLE XXXIII. 



THE TWO DOGS. 

Virtues and Vices, birds of diff 'rent feather. 

Full oft, behold we, flock together : 
The virtues, tho' by Nature so allied, 

Croud not, unmingled, side by side. 
Marco has prudence, not without a dash 
Of mean self-love : his heart's too cold. 
Of his next neighbour's valour, if you're told, 
In the same breath, you hear he's rude, or rash : 
Thus brass, or tin, still mingle in your cash. 

'Mong animals, the Dog is he, 
Whose boasted merit is fidelity. 

But let him eye your soup or mutton. 

Instant behold the sot, or glutton ! 

Two Mastiffs stand, at distance, noting 
A dead Ass, on the river's surface floating, 

Which wind and current both unite 

In bearing almost out of sight. 
" A mist, cries one, my eyesight strangely dims, 
" Or yonder some dead ox, or racer swims." 

" I care not which, replies his brother, 
ec Methinks at least, it looks like meat : 
" So 'tis but something fit to eat, 
u I care not, whether one, or t'other." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDET. 191 

iC The only point of consequence with me ? 
" (And here you'll hardly disagree) 
" Is, since the stream's so deep and wide, 
" How we shall ever stem the tide. . 
" Let us then, since we both are dry, 
" And liquids we know how to sup, 
, "^Boldly the quantity defy, 
u And drink the river fairly up. 
" Yon carcase then you'll see on land, 
" And a week^s dinners at command." 
Behold these creatures, stupidly unthinking, 
Slaves of desire, proceed to drinking ; 
Soon swell'd and panting both for breath. 
With monstrous greediness accurst. 
They ceased not drinking till they burst, 
And their mad fancy ended but with death. 
'Tis thus with men, (O ! may our fable shame 'em) 
Let but some object once inflame 'em, 
Tho' 'tis impossible to gain it, 
The fancy takes, and they'll maintain it : 
Threaten what may, to make 'em rue it, 
They still determine to pursue it : 
What projects, vows, and supplications, 
But to procure themselves vexations ! 
One, wildly wishing to controul the fates, 
Sighs but to treble his estates. 
A pauper hopes, nor argues worse, 



192 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



Wanting all means, to fill his purse. 
A third to reason bids defiance, 
And with the rage of knowledge burning, 
Conceives the easy task of learning 
All hist'ry, languages, and science : 
Who shall such heads from lunacy deliver ; 
All aiming to drink up the river ? 



CABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 193 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Though the proverbial fidelity 
of these animals often meets, in them, the good 
qualities of vigilance, gratitude, affection for their 
masters and courage in their defence ; this may he 
supposed to happen from chance or instinct, and not 
in them from any moral connection between these 
virtues and fidelity ; but in mankind there are 
several virtues, which seem to have a moral and 
almost natural alliance with fidelity ; what are they 
chiefly ? 

Respondent. — The love of our neighbour; 
disinterestedness ; discretion ; strict vigilance in 
the concerns of others ; fortitude in resisting 
temptation to wrong them to our own advantage ; 
prudence and order in our own affairs ; and in 
genera], a superior command of our own passions. 

2. Ex. — But what, directly, may be learnt from 
the story of this fable ? 

Res. — That this virtue of fidelity may subsist 
with occasional instances of great extravagance 
and absurdity. 

3. Ex. — But will not even these be most com- 
monly such as are less injurious to others than to 
the man of fidelity himself? 



1 



194 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



Res. — The instance in the fable is certainly of 
that kind, and such perhaps as general experience 
may have found. 

4. Ex. — But what is the direct scope of this 
fable ? 

Res. — To shew, that inordinate appetites, or 
violent passions, in defiance of the plainest common 
sense, will sometimes prompt impossible means of 
gratification. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 195 

FABLE XXXIV. 

THE TOWN AND COUNTRY RAT. 

A City Rat, of higher station, 
Invites his rural friend to dine ; 
Puts on the card of invitation, 
A hint of Ortolans — the hour was nine. 
A Turkey carpet, nicely spread, 
The covers of each course receive ; 
And heartily these cronies fed 
At such a treat, you'll easily believe. 
The Citizen, a rat of taste. 
Brought all his niceties to table. 
Now, tho' to rise appear'd no haste, 
To sit out the desert, they prov'd unable. 
At the hall door some noise was made, 
Like grating hinges ; loud, yet hollow. 
Quick scampers off the city blade, 
Nor lags an inch his country guest, to follow. 
The noise subsides ; they venture back ; 
" Come, says the master of the feast, 
" I doubt you're still upon the rack, 
u But stay, my friend, let's crack our nuts at 
least." 
That finish'd ; says our country guest, 
a To-morrow come and dine with me ; 



196 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



u But note, plain dinners suit us best, 

66 Us country folks ; and mind, we dine at three. 

" Expect no Ortolans with us, 

u On t'other hand, no town alarms. 

" Adieu ! we've no such noise ; no fuss — 
" They'd rob my lord mayor's turtle of its charms." 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 197 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — What do we learn from this 
fable ? 

Respondent. — That in scenes of life which 
make but little shew, there is generally to be found 
greater safety and tranquillity. 

2. Ex. — But since most men prefer quiet and 
security to alarm and danger, both prudentially 
considered, whence is it, that such multitudes, in 
their passage through life, are frequently embarking 
in projects, and placing themselves in situations 
attended with alarm and danger ? 

Res. — Because the desire, natural to man, of 
bettering his condition, is a stronger principle than 
his love of peace and safety. 

3. Ex. — In educating man to sustain a respect- 
able part in society/ is it wises to foster this stronger 
principle, or to strengthen the weaker one ? 

Hes. — Since it must be with design, that either 
principle has been implanted in the breast of 
different individuals by the Author of nature, it 
should seem best in every system of education, to 
leave each principle to its own operation upon 
human conduct. 

4. Ex* —But to keep the character of the two 



198 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

principles in question more in sight, we will call 
one an ambitious spirit, and the other, a contented 
love of quiet and safety ; I would then ask, since 
we often see the ambitious spirit carrying men with 
the most daring rashness into situations of alarm 
and danger, in order to atchieve some action of 
eclat, or to gain some point they deem important, 
whether it should make no part of education to 
check this disposition of youth, when it appears in 
their state of pupilage ? 

Res. — It is true, that in after life we sometimes 
witness these daring and hazardous effects of this 
disposition ; but as they are often attended, and 
particularly in war, with signal benefit to the 
country of such citizens, it should seem wisest to 
make it no direct object of education, to tame this 
adventurous spirit. 

5. Ex. — May it not be done at least indirectly ? 
R ES . — Since both historical and moral reading 

make an essential part in every liberal system of 
instruction, no youth can be without knowledge of 
the consequences of an inordinate spirit of ambition, 
and he may therefore be left to his own reflection 
upon them. Thus far education cannot fail to 
bear generally and indirectly upon the case. 

6. Ex. — But, on the other hand, may not the 
contented love of quiet, and security in youth, 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 199 

prove an obstacle to such efforts in manhood, as 
may be necessary for the maintenance of their 
original station in life ? 

REs.-^This tamer character will have as much 
advantage from the impressions of historical and 
moral instruction as the other. It may be added, 
that, under the influence of these opposite disposi- 
tions, young persons are generally led, where the 
choice is given them, to ch*use that profession, 
vocation, or situation in life, for which Nature has 
best fitted them, and in which they are likeliest to 
fulfil, respectively, their proper duties. 

7. Ex. — Then your conclusion, on comparing 
the different lives and situations of the Town and 
Country Rat seems to be this — that no general or 
decided preference ought to be given of one to the 
other ? 

Res. — It is : for since society could not subsist 
without its different states and conditions, it is 
surely fittest, that different men should be so con- 
stituted, as to find their happiness, and to perform 
their duties, in them all. 



200 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

* FABLE XXXV. 

THE WOODMAN AND DEATH. 

A poor old Woodman, smother'd with his load, 
And bent beneath his fagot's weight, 
Went slowly trudging on the road, 
Much wearied with his- freight. 

The chimney corner of his cot once more, 

Not distant far, he labours hard to gain ; 

But quite exhausted, finds the labour vain, 

Flings down his load, and counts his mis'ries o'er. 
" On hardships, woes and penury hurl'd, 
" Have I known pleasure in this world ! 
" With work scarce earning daily bread, 

" Morn brings me cares, and night no sure repose : 
" A brawling wife, whose frowns I dread, 
u Children ill-taught, nor better fed, 

" The ceaseless plagues my sad condition knows ! 
" While taxes on provisions feeding, 
" Double their price, that weighs like lead, 

u New calls on poverty are ever breeding. 
" With all these evils, at eternal strife, 

" Behold ! nor overcharged, the picture of my 
life !" 
He calls for Death ; who, ever near, 
Fail'd not that moment to appear. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 201 

Of the decrepid mourner he demands. 

What 'twas he wished for at his hands. 
" A trifle — I won't trouble you to stay; 
" Just, help me with my load up, — and away !" 

When Death appears our ills to cure^ 

We find them easy to endure ; 

" Better to suffer, than to die," 

Is Nature's universal cry.* 



* The reader will find this sentiment of Fontaine particularly 
examined in the questions. 



202 FABLES FOll THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Does not Fontaine's reflection, 
delivered in the formal stile of a maxim in the two 
concluding lines of this fable, deserve reprobation ? 

Respondent. — Surely it must in the eyes of any 
Christian moralist. 

2. Ex. — May not death, to persons prepared 
for it by a well-spent life, be, in many cases, pre- 
ferable to a state of great suffering ? 

Res. — I am much inclined to think so. 

3. Ex. — Can you enumerate a few such cases ? 

Res. — It being remembered that, in this ques- 
tion, the preparation of a good life is always sup- 
posed, death, not to mention the incurable maladies 
of old age, to a person incessantly tormented with 
the gout or the stone ; to one-corroded by a linger- 
ing cancer ; to another in a state of slavery under 
a cruel master ; to a third under imprisonment for 
life, or in absolute want of bread to satisfy hunger ; 
and to many, perhaps innumerable other objects, — 
death I say, as an alternative, would most sincerely 
be preferred to life under an unremitted sensation 
of any of these, or equal sufferings. 

4. Ex. — But does not this conclusion militate 
against the law of self-preservation ? 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 203 

Res. — Not at all ; since a good man can never 
forget this prime law of his nature, be his suffer- 
ings whatever they may ; for be his preference of 
death ever so decided, he thinks himself indis- 
pensably obliged, to take food or medicine to 
sustain life, and to resign himself wholly to the will 
of God. 

5. Ex. — Do you then suppose all, who commit 
suicide, unless in a state of insanity, to be positively 
bad men ? 

Res. — They are undoubtedly so far at least very 
wicked ; for the act itself is as much murder, as if 
committed on another, and it is more desperate in 
its consequences to the self-murderer, inasmuch as 
it precludes the possibility of repentance. 

6. Ex. — But, apart from this crime, were we to 
suppose him a bad man even in the sight of God ; 
do you conceive his former life would prevent his 
condemnation at the last tribunal ? 

Res. — Christians have no authority to admit, 
that an unrepented crime will escape condemna- 
tion. 

7. Ex. — But can a man, positively good, in 
a Christian sense, were he supposed to forget the 
law of self-preservation, be conceived guilty of the 
crime of suicide under any circumstances but that 
of insanity ? 



204 FABLES FOR THE FIRE*SIDE. 

Res. — I think not ; because his religion will 
enable him to support any degree of misfortune 
or misery with fortitude ; and as a good man, he 
cannot but resort to it. 

8. Ex. — Does not the fabulist seem to suppose 
old age a greater burthen in poverty , than in a 
state of prosperity ? 

Res. — The choice of his soliloquist from the 
former state may have been quite accidental. 

9. Ex. — But I would ask, in whether of these 
opposite states is old age probably the less tolerable ? 

Res. — Putting all extraordinary cases out of the 
question on either side, and considering it generally, 
I answer, that while from the poor man, in old age, 
death can take nothing but the mere necessaries of 
life, and its natural pleasures and best affections, it 
takes all these from the opulent man, together with 
all his imaginary satisfactions and factitious enjoy- 
ments. With deaih, then, very frequently in view, 
as it must be to all old persons, the prosperous man 
feels the pressure of weightier loss and stronger 
regrets, as the companion of his thoughts in declin- 
ing life, and probably, therefore, of the two finds 
old age the more burthensome. 



FA#LES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE, 205 

FABLE XXXVI. 

THE LION GOING TO WAR. 

The Lion once, like Bonaparte, 
With appetite for war most hearty, 
(The plea, no matter what to him, 

Offence, convenience, or whim) 

Conceived new projects of ambition 
On his next neighbour, or some state at distance. 

From ev 7 ry rank, from each condition, 

He calls forth levies for assistance. 
To ev'ry one in council, was assign'd 

Such office, post or station, 
As suited best his character, or parts, 
His courage, or his skill in warlike arts : 

That in the Lion's army each might find 
His proper occupation. 

Be sure the Elephant was plac'd 

In th' ordnance ; and with weighty hoof 
For trampling form'd, he would not stand aloof^ 

If in the front of battle plac'd. 
In rude assault fierce Bruin was to share ; 

His province still to play the Bear ; 

And Reynard knew the ruses de guerre. 
Why should the Monkey throw away his tricks ? 
An enemy must sometimes be, amused ; 



206 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

The Monkey, therefore, with rest might mix ; 

Nor could with prudence be refused. 
Thus in his element was each disposed : 

When lo ! before the council closed, 
Some member said : " 'Twere better to admit 

" No coward hares ; and still less fit 

u My judgment deems the long-ear 'd race, 

u Among the troops to find a place. 

u Reject 'em both for worthless cattle ; 
u Both sure to fail us in the day of battle." 

" Forbear, the Lion cries, to flout 'em ; 

" Our army's not complete without them. 

« I've mark'd for each' his proper post : 

" Donkey for trumpeter we'll take ; 
" His bray may terrify th' opposing host. 

iC Puss a fleet messenger will make ; 
u And each fit talent for his place may boast." 
Through all varieties of mind or feature, 
Wise monarchs thus the character will learn, 

And in each individual creature 
Some talents or abilities discern ; 

Such as to use by Nature tend, 

Or wait a skilful hand to bend. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 207 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Whence comes that disposi- 
tion we too often discern in ourselves, to overlook, 
or undervalue the abilities or talents of others ? 

Respondent. — It may arise from pride, envy, 
want of discernment, or carelessness. 

2. Ex. — But to which of these causes should 
you attribute it in a counsellor of like importance 
with him in the fable ? 

Res. — Since from his situation in a council of 
war, he must be supposed a person of consequence, 
there seemed nothing to alarm either his pride or 
envy in the election of officers, &c: he gave proof 
therefore of carelessness, or want of discernment. 

3. Ex. — But could blame fall upon him in both 
these cases ? 

Res. — No : in that only of carelessness or inad- 
vertence : the sovereign must blame himself who 
admits a person wanting discernment into his 
councils. 

4. Ex. — What virtues do you think the fabulist 
means chiefly to recommend to sovereigns in the 
example of the Lion ? 

Res. — Humanity and justice : humanity, which 
should lead him to suppose some degree of worth in 



208 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



every individual subject ; and justice, to weigh the 
merits of all, whom he may have opportunity to 
place in situations of utility or credit. 

5. Ex. — Does this fable point to any thing 
farther than the duty of kings and their coun- 
sellors ? 

Res. — It is an admonition to all persons, so 
stationed or circumstanced as to be called upon for 
their opinions of the characters and abilities of 
other men ; and inculcates the duties of candour 
and justice in the estimates we make of them. 



FABLES FOll THE FIRE-SIDE. 209 

FABLE XXXVIL 

THE RAT AND THE ELEPHANT. 

With Frenchmen, says a poet of their nation, 

Not speaking of their sages, 
To be stiied persons is not high enough : 

They deem it unpolite and rough, 

Whatever be their station, y 
Not to be character 'd as personages. 

Our poet then, (and none more able) 

Pourtrays the coxcombs in a fable. 

A Rat, diminutive of size, 
On a huge Elephant had fix'd his eyes ; 
Smiles " at an animal three stories high, 

" Yet doom'd some proud Sultana's hack, 

" To bear her household on his back ; 

u Lap dog, cat, paroquet and pye, 

" Duenna too, her guardian sage, 
" Dragging his load on holy pilgrimage." 

The Rat was wond'ring to behold, 
The crowds stand gaping at this mighty mass. 

" Pray, what, if I may be so bold, 
6C Is it, good people, ye admire in him ? 
" Is't, that ye deem the creature Nature's whim ; 

" Or that, when children near him pass, 

u You are amused, and call it fun, 



210 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

a To see, how frighten'd off they run ? 

" But, Sirs, I'd have you understand, 
i; Altho' he looks so lofty and so grand, 
" We Rats, but small of corporal dimensions, 
" Yield not, in consequence, to his pretensions." 

Our little personage's speech 

Happen'd Grimalkin's ear to reach ; 

Who gave him a convincing pat, 
Which, spite of all his vanity and rant, 

Taught him how soon a puny Rat, 

May find himself no Elephant. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-STDE. 211 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — The foregoing fable concerns 
the opinions we form of others ; what is the object 
of this ? 

Respondent. — The opinions we conceive of 
ourselves. 

2. Ex.— Are not all men prone to think too 
highly of themselves ? 

Res. — Throughout the human race, there is 
probably no exception. 

3. Ex. — But is such extravagance as that of 
the Rat in the fable at all common ? 

Res. — We are much inclined to suppose so. In 
our commerce with the world, what character do 
we more commonly meet with than that of a cox- 
comb ; a man, that is, who thinks too well of him- 
self in every respect, and cannot help shewing it. 

4. Ex. — To what do such false opinions of our- 
selves lead ? 

Res. — To ridiculous comparisons, which we 
make between ourselves and our superiors, like 
that in the fable. 

5. Ex. — Is this fault equal to that pointed out 
to censure in the last apologue ? 

Res. — Certainly not : that leads to the serious 



212 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



violation of humanity and justice towards other 
men : this generally, but to expose ourselves to 
the ridicule of the world. 

6. £x. — What then is imported by the Rat's 
meeting with his death in the midst of his foolish 
vaunting ? 

Res. — It only means, that such an accident (for 
it was no more) was well adapted to give him, 
though too late, sufficient conviction of his folly 
and conceit. 

7. Ex — But do not such absurdity and extra- 
vagance deserve at least some punishment ? 

Res. — Yes : and persons guilty of them are con- 
tinually meeting with it in the mortifications they 
experience from the ridicule and contempt of the 
world ; and which, happily, as they advance in 
age, not unfrequently work their cure. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 21c 

FABLE XXXYIII. 

THE POWER OF FABLE. 

At Athens once, as goes the story, 

An Orator, and he no stranger 

To that fam'd people, light and vain. 

Seeing their state and all its glory, 

On some great crisis, full of danger : 
Their hearing at the forum sought to gain. 

His matter weigh'd, and well composed ; 

Each period musically closed ; 

His voice high pitch'd, and free from twang,' 

Suppose him launch'd in his harangue ; 

You'll scarce believe me, if I mention, 

Th' assembly shew'd him no attention. 
These his first efforts failing all to charm 'em, 
He rais'd his voice, and thunder'd to alarm 'em : 

Conjur'd them by the state's declining health. 
And bade them tremble for the commonwealth : 

Still no effect ! None listen'd yet ! — 

Our speaker now resolv'd to try 

His rhet'ric's whole artillery : 

Behold him, on his centre set, 
Collected ; nor vouchsafes he once to ope 

His mouth, but out there flies a trope : 

Tills form'd to tickle ; that to lull ; 



214 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-felDE. 

A third, to animate the dull. 

Bmt all in vain : none seem'd to mind ; 

He did but whistle to the wind. 

No party could he raise ; no faction ; 

By force of words, or dint of action. 

A wrestler's ring, or boxing match, 

A mountebank, or boys at play, 

Much sooner their attention catch : 
Bent but on objects frivolous, or gay. 
A thought at length our speaker's fancy struck : 

Though much chagrined, much mortified, 

He did not quite despair of luck, 

At least before the thing was try'd. 
Have ye e'er heard, he cries, that odd affair 

About old Ceres, our Protector ? 

If not, I think, 'twill make you stare ; 
To do so strange a thing, you'd scarce expect her, 

A journey, meaning once to take, 
Her travelling companions would ye guess ? 

A Swallow, and a Water Snake ! 

Nor strange the wonder you express. 

It so fell out, the party soon discover 

A river, traversing their way ; 
So broad, not e'en a Goddess could hop over. 
But neither Bird, nor Snake had need to stay. 
Or of their time to risk a moment's loss ; 

One flew, and t'other swam across. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 215 

But tell us, all exclaim, what Ceres did ? 

Why friends ! she'd nothing else to do, 
Than vent her rising wrath on you. 

She wishes you severely chid : 

She says, you're naughty children all, 
And mindless of your fate, 
To let your Orator unheeded call 
Attention to the perils of the state ; 
While yet a puerile fable could prevail 
T' awaken all your curiosity : 
Athens alone among the Greeks can fail, 

To ask what Philip* may be doing, 

Who seeks to rule their destiny, 
And plots, from morn to night, their ruin. 
Attention by his apologue recall'd, 
Their Orator unheard no longer baul'd : 

A strict observance now they paid 

To every syllable he said. 

Hence let no story-teller fail, 

To sing the praise of apologue, or tale. 
HailiEsop! Phaedrus ! Mother Goose ! Fontaine! 
When orators their arguments address 

To folks, who pay them no attention, 

In case they would not talk in vain, 

And shine but little at invention ; 
Let them our fables into service press, 
Nor doubt a hearing in their cause to gain. 

* Kin?: of Macedon. 



216 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



QUESTIONS, &c. 

1. Examiner. — Whence is it, that fables and 
fictitious tales derive their power over the human 
mind ? 

Respondent. — Not improbably, from the con- 
tinual and quick succession of cause and effect 
which they exhibit ; or, to express this matter 
morally, from the motives of action and the actions 
themselves always quickly succeeding each other 
in the little drama of a fable. Suspense, when not 
actually experienced in our own afFairs, is not an 
unpleasant sensation ; provided we are not long 
kept from the knowledge of some effect, cvent^ 
or end proposed, and expected . In fables curiosity 
is scarcely sooner excited, than it is gratified, 

2. Ex. — Does not this reason explain at the 
same time, why the attention of a volatile •and 
impatient people, like the Athenians, is more easily 
caught by a tale, than a laboured oration with a 
long train of reasoning ? 

Res. — Yes ; the case of the Athenians seems* 
thus naturally explained. 

3. Ex. — But how will you account for the same 
effect being wrought on the Romans by the 
famous apologue of the belli/ and members in the 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 217 

bands of Menenius Agrippa, although the Roman 
character was marked neither by volatility, nor 
impatience ? 

Res. — This instance does not contradict the 
explanation above given. There are moments at 
least, in which all nations resemble each other ; 
particularly in those of their public political assem- 
blies. Subjects of peculiar interest on those occa- 
sions excite a spirit of enquiry, and kindle warm 
expectation, and sometimes cause tumultuous 
movements. Decision is then waited for impa- 
tiently, through a long series of reasoning on both 
sides a question ; and happy is the speaker, who, 
by an apposite story or apologue, can relieve the 
dryness of argument, and inspire patience and 
good humour enough, to obtain a fair hearing 
at last. 

4. Ex. — Has not this expedient, so successfully 
and often judiciously resorted to by men of wit and 
imagination in our houses of parliament, and also at 
the bar, been somewhat rashly tried in the pulpit l 

Res. — Yes, by a certain tribe of extempore self- 
ordained preachers, and with success too in address- 
ing themselves to a class of hearers of their own low 
order in society. 

5. Ex. — Why has it then been so little adopted 
by preachers of the established church ? 



218 FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 

Res. — Few of correct judgment or elegant taste 
have ever ventured upon it in the solemn addresses 
of the pulpit, any farther than in narrating the dig- 
nified histories, apologues and parables of holy 
scripture ; always finding the lightness and do- 
mestic familiarity, of what are properly called 
stories, have excited the ridicule or disgust of the 
educated part of their audiences. 

6. Ex. — What other reasons are there, which 
seem to make this light stile of narration so unsuit- 
able to clerical use ? 

Res. — The sacred and sublime nature of re- 
ligious subjects ; the solemnity of the places dedi- 
cated to the worship of the high and holy one of 
eternity ; the sanctity of an ordained priesthood ; 
and the indispensable obligations of its ministers to 
consult alike the serious edification and due respect 
of all classes of their hearers ; however the lowest 
may be wanting to themselves. 

7. Ex. — Is then the practice of extemporary 
preaching to be recommended in the established 
church ? 

Res. — As it generally leads to this light humour 
of story -telling, and its burlesque effects, io mention 
no other absurdities so abundantly springing from 
it, there seems the wisest reasons for abstaining 
from it. 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 219 

8. Ex. — May not vanity and affectation of 
popular applause, never soberly to be courted by 
the true minister of the gospel, be often supposed 
to have their share in the motives to this practice ? 

Res. — This is too probable. 

9. Ex. — But can it be affirmed, that the para- 
bles of their divine master, and his unwritten dis- 
courses, were meant for examples of both these 
practices, viz.: extemporary preaching, and of 
story -telling ? 

Res. — Affirmed it may be, and has been, but with 
little shew of reason. The wonderful powers of 
his divine mind, and the certain inspiration of his 
apostles by the holy spirit, made the mechanical 
helps of writing then perfectly unnecessary ; and 
gifts of the same nature, and nothing less perhaps, 
would alone justly make them so now. And how 
little countenance our modern tales, in the pulpits 
of the tabernacle, &c. gain from the parables of 
our Lord 2 will appear to any discerning and sober 
mind on the slightest comparison. His parables 
are beautiful allegories, and such as could never 
have come without premeditation from any thing 
less than a divine mind. They are full of striking 
imagery ; always intelligible, but never familiar ; 
lively, but never vulgar ; and have ever been 
found to affect equally the hearts and imaginations 



220 



FABLES FOR THE FIRE-SIDE. 



of the best educated persons, and of the most 
illiterate; whereas, the stories introduced into the 
extemporary harangues alluded to, though suitable 
enough to the taste of the vulgar, and fit only for 
their merry-makings at a coufctry wake, never fail 
to disgust the better classes of every church audi- 
ence, and the serious and sensible part of all orders 
In our congregations. 



Hughes, Printer, Ma*(fev-hane, Covcn(-Gar<!en. 



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